Battle Mage: The Lost King (Tales of Alus) (25 page)

Knowing that he was changing the subject, Yara lost her smile slightly and turned away to look at the nearest plants without having to look at Sebastian. “He could have left us a warning or maybe the ring in a better place to use it before we were attacked by the flower vine thing.”

“It’s a big island. There were only two places that he could have left it where he could be sure that someone would find it, one of the two ruins. The temple does make the most sense since it is the source of the curse he mentioned. I wonder if any other travelers stopped here and ran into this cursed jungle?” he mused as they walked.

It was getting darker now that they were away from the cathedral like area nearest the temple ruins. The glowing plants had faded from sight and the mage brought out a fire wisp. With a silver white glow illuminating their path, the couple continued to make good time through the jungle.

“I wonder what happened to the others,” the girl brought up a worry that they both had. The serenity of the temple was behind them and the worries of the outside world had already begun to return.

“Collin is a good leader even if he doesn’t realize it and with Nara at his side, I think he could anything,” Sebastian stated trying to sound positive. The jungle was powerful and so large. Even six powerful wizards and mages would have trouble getting free of the cursed jungle.

Yara looked worried as she remembered something and spoke her thoughts so Sebastian would know them as well, “The note said something about a curse, but specifically about the curse on the fortress where Maura was supposed to look. We’ve seen no sign of this ‘rot’ that he spoke of here. If the fort has the rot curse on it, then the others could be in even worse trouble than we were. They don’t have any healers left with us stuck in this jungle.”

The last was nearly accusatory, but he didn’t know if the blame was aimed at him. She had been the one who had urged to consummate their relationship one more time after all. He could have said no and pushed to leave more strongly, but there had been a different kind of need between them as well.

“We’ll hurry and hopefully we can cure the curse before anyone is too far gone,” the mage stated looking to the flora before them. They could try to run once they were free of the jungle, though he wasn’t sure that Yara could run over two miles to the fortress. He was a battle mage and conditioned to long runs, but a healer wasn’t a soldier or mage.

With that said, the two said little as they hurried through the parting sea of life. When the beach lit by the silver moon of Epsilon and the red light of Turas finally was revealed to them, their eyes almost couldn’t take it in so abrupt was the change. They followed the beach from the edge of the jungle. It would shorten the walk by a small amount and the less time it took the better they would feel about it.

Their hands remained clasped together though the power of the ring was no longer needed.

After more than an hour long walk, the two of them could see campfires on the beach ahead of them. The relief at seeing all their friends from both teams roused to come meet them nearly overwhelmed them.

“There’s a curse on the fortress,” Yara blurted out on seeing Liam and Serrena among the others. Frell, Collin and Nara were there as well the healer noted waiting to find out if she was needed immediately. Her stomach told her that she was hungry. The fruit seen in the jungle seemed unwise to eat, so they had nothing but a little bread and cheese from Sebastian’s backpack. Hers had been lost in the confusion of the vines.

“We know,” Frell was the first to declare. Her embarrassment at having been under the control of the moss and been naked amongst her peers still bothered the falcon, even though no one had said anything negative to her.

Liam nodded, “Anna figured out how to cure us all with sea water, so everyone is fine.”

Collin noted something else different from the others as he said, “If you knew about the curse, then you must have found something to warn you. Did you two make it to the ruins?”

Glad that the darkness and Turas red light masked her blush, Yara nodded. Sebastian spoke for the both of them, “It was a temple for the merfolk. The steward of the Grimnal left a message and a ring to protect anyone who found it.”

Frowning, Collin blurted, “If you could make it to the ring, did he think you would still need it? I mean, anyone who could get to the ring was probably powerful enough to not need its aid and those not powerful would need it sooner!”

“That was my complaint too,” Yara pretended to pout slightly. “Sebastian decided that the island was too big for him to guess where someone would look first, but figured that the temple ruins were a likely destination if they could get there. Would the fort have been any easier?”

Liam glanced at the women who had joined him in the fort and spoke for them. “We were attacked by moss covered orc corpses and were nearly cursed to become moss zombies from contact with
them. A ring to drive them away would have been nice to have in there also. What does the ring do anyway?”

Sebastian held up the ring as he released Yara’s hand for the first time in hours. “In the jungle, it made the trees and bushes move away making a corridor for us to walk back from the temple. It supposedly harnesses the Grimnal’s ability to resist magic. The letter said that it might even help cure the moss curse you spoke about in the fortress. For anyone that hadn’t succumbed or faded too far, it might reverse the process.”

“A ring of anti magic, huh?” Collin mused with his chin on one hand while the other arm formed the base for his elbow. “That could come in handy fighting a wizard also.”

The group moved back towards the campsite and the fire. Annalicia stuck her head out from her tent seeing that the lost ones had returned. It was late, however, so woman slid back into her tent as if she didn’t really care. Liam knew better. In Sebastian’s absence, the wizard from Malaiy had been the glue that held everyone together and she had risked much to save him and the others. She was just giving them their moment together.

Despite their happiness that everyone was fine. Exhaustion and the need for sleep soon forced the team to find places to rest.

Chapter 17- The Cleanse

The last moon sat far to the east fading away in the morning sunlight. Sitting in a light fog, the ship and crew viewed the island through a haze. The stone of the ruined fortress was a dark jagged line.
Green became grey and the occasional movement of the moss men haunting the rugged grass just beyond a line of rock and sand reminded them that the curse did not sleep.

Halfway between the waterline and the first pieces of grass, Liam, Reynolvan and Vewen worked on magic requiring more time than they might have in a battle. Each man worked on one part of the spell, and used their individual power to sustain that one point. Sebastian and Annalicia stood to either side waiting for their part of the plan to come.

The cursed fort of the Dark One had served as punishment enough for the creatures that had once driven them from their temple and destroyed their land. Reduced to dead meat and moss, the creatures were beyond the reach of the punishment now and it only risked harming innocent sailors in the future. As that seemed a bit careless to leave behind when they believed that they could cure at least this part of the island, Sebastian and the crew stood ready to remove the threat of the moss men. Liam had led the charge after being cured the night before and it was his plan they followed now.

“Now,” the water wizard ordered and the three men made motions of taking hold of something with their hands. Liam closed his eyes to imagine the spell taking shape and a huge swirling spout of water began to form a short way out into the sea. Reynolvan looked at his spot and a second spout of a similar size rose a hundred feet to the left along the beach.

As the third spout driven by Vewen’s power rose just beyond the other two, Anna began summoning her spell to assist the plan. Sebastian planted Bairh’loore in the ground ready to call the wind with the extra strength, though it was against Yara’s wishes. The healer didn’t want him flirting with the early death Darius had warned could happen from overusing the staff to tap the earth’s vast power.

Moving with the willpower of the three wizards, the water spouts began to writhe like snakes through the air heading towards the fort to the north. The reach of the spouts was limited and, even with the power of three full wizards driving them, they would not be able to reach the fortress without help. As
the snakes began to reach their limit, Annalicia and Sebastian summoned the winds. Gusts tore at the snakes lifting the salt water higher and farther. A rain of salt water began to fall on the grass and stone.

When the salty rain began to the strike the green on the walls and bodies of the moss men, the plants began to recoil in pain. The salt burned and steam rose from where the drops struck. Unrelenting, the wizards and mage continued to channel more and more of the sea onto the fortress and surrounding area.

Spotters using glass scopes or using vision spells watched as the shambling moss men stumbled and tried to run, but the water was everywhere cutting off their retreat. Liam had realized that the plants needed to be able to touch the ground to escape, but if the ground was already coated with salt water they would continue to burn. Eventually, the power of the curing salt began to bring the cursed creatures down. The vines and moss on the walls dissolved as did the plant life manipulating the long dead orcs and men. Only decayed corpses of flesh and bone remained where they fell.

Wanting to be sure that they had achieved their goal, the water wizards with a contingent of mages and sword wielding soldiers entered the cleansed stone of the fort. Prepared to use their magic to move the water where it was needed to cleanse any of the cursed that might have found places to hide, the water wizards scoured the fort with the others.

After an hour of careful searching with just a mere handful moss men and a couple walls harboring some of the cursed vines to deal with after the first attack, the men and women of the Sea Dragon were able to return to the ship feeling certain that the ruins had been cleared of all the infected. If there were more of the creatures beyond the ruins in the jungle or otherwise hidden, they couldn’t be sure, but they figured that the salt lacing the fort would keep any return from happening for a long time at least.

Standing on the raised deck at the rear of the ship, Liam watched as the island slowly faded into the distance. Annalicia and a few others watched as well. “You look like you are conflicted about
leaving,” the lady of Malaiy mused. She wore a red top cut short enough to reveal her navel area and a light blue skirt made of the light material that she seemed to enjoy so much.

The red was different, Liam thought slightly distracted by the view of the island. Moving his gaze from the woman back to the horizon, he replied as he considered his thoughts aloud, “I am more conflicted about whether we should have killed those creatures. We basically destroyed an entire race of plant men. They didn’t think the way we do, but there was some form of intelligence there. Should we have just eradicated them so callously?”

Pursing her lips in a slight frown, the woman pushed back at a stray lock of hair. The winds on the ship would never let her hair remain perfectly set unless the wind wizard decided to use an air shield. Liam realized that the girl was barefoot and using no spell to keep warm. For a southerner, that was very unusual. Even the people onboard the ship still felt the cool air and wore clothes designed for winter or fall.

Annalicia didn’t seem to feel the cold, but the stray lock was another matter. Ignoring the annoyance to answer his questioning, the woman held the strand of silver and began to try to help sort out his feelings as she viewed them, “You were infected by them and probably know more than I do of what they feel. We all felt a certain amount of affinity for the creatures as if we were being joined to a collective spirit, but they were still individual. That much may make us want to think of them as living beings, but there was no central thought. It was merely instinct.

“Once you were free from the curse, you were the first to push to cleanse them from the fort so no one else would run the risk of becoming contaminated. If you truly believed them to be more than a cancer trying to take over healthy flesh, then your actions speak contrarily.

“While I was just in the beginning stages from having touched you who were further along, I did feel some of the urge to return to the fort. The curse makes those under its influence stay where it can
ripen and take over a being. The plants didn’t work with their hosts. They let them die and merely live off of the dead flesh using the framework to manipulate the dead body within to seem like a man, Liam.

“After the salt dissolved the moss and vines, you saw the corpses for yourself.

“If we had left the curse in place, many others would probably wander into that cursed place and would have joined them in their curse. We couldn’t leave it in place because it was simply a rot living off the dead.”

He heard her words and considered them. The man had thought them all at one time, but seeing all the dead bodies in the fort made him question what they had done. “If a man dies in the forest, plants grow and use his flesh to replenish nature.”

“If someone wanders into the forest and stumbles across the dead man, the plants don’t usually try to attack them and turn them into nourishment for nature before their time,” the girl wagged her finger at his face chiding his attempt to flip logic. “Either way, what is done can’t be undone. Dwell on it this way and you may never get over it. We freed the dead to go on into eternity, if they hadn’t already more than a century beforehand.”