Battle Mage: Winter's Edge (42 page)

“I wish you could come with us as well,” Ashleen said giving a sad smile. Her blue eyes held his as she added, “You’re a good friend, Bas. I’ll miss you.”

Returning the smile, the young man replied, “I’ll miss you too. It’s strange how close you can get to someone in such a short time. I’ll miss our dinners together and the dancing.”

“And my pretty dresses? Maybe even my legs?” her words probed as she knew the teasing would bring about a blush from her friend.

Not failing to disappoint as his mind couldn’t help flashing a mental picture to help bring on the flush in his cheeks, Sebastian nodded with a sheepish smile, “Both of course, though which I will miss more is anyone’s guess.”

Wagging a finger beneath his nose, the girl admonished, “Said like a wizard. I think we’ve been rubbing off on you during your training.”

“Well, I can certainly say the use of your lightning has come in handy. I am sure that isn’t the only thing that I’ve picked up from our time traveling. Stay safe, Ashleen. Perhaps in Hala we’ll see each other again.”

The wilder surprised him giving the mage a quick, tight hug around his neck as she said a last goodbye before hurrying back to the carriage which the ambassador and his daughter had already entered. Sebastian watched the girl go with a little more sadness and longing than he thought he would and maybe even should have felt. The two had nearly had an instant connection at a time when he was unsure of his future with Yara. Perhaps under different circumstances, she might have been someone that his heart would have followed instead.

Turning to leave for his third day of training since returning to White Hall, the mage also turned his mind to the matters immediately before him. He could only postpone his departure a few more days before he had to go to his next destination. If he was going to spend any time with his family, as the ravens had insisted, Sebastian would need to make sure to leave time before heading on to the capitol.

Home. It was a word that seemed more appropriate to White Hall for the last quarter of his life, but his parents owned a farm that White Hall helped them keep by sending a monthly wage. He had lived there almost fifteen years, but the boy that had spent his early years learning to help around the farm had never truly felt that he had belonged there. There had always been something that Bas felt he should be doing instead of scratching a life from the ground. His parents had been struggling to make ends meet before the wizards had come and made an offer to them concerning his future and theirs.

He had just turned fifteen but, like a wilder, glimpses of his magic had been manifesting for almost two years. The wizards couldn’t visit every town each year, so the schools could only take so many recruits each year. Sure a truly exquisite find like a child strong with magic would find a place no matter who they might have to move, but a low level like a mage had less demand. In his fifteenth year, the men in their brown and black robes had checked for candidates in the land near the town of Mera. Little more than a few homes and businesses gathered alongside the road to the province of Cadmene, wizards didn’t necessarily prioritize it or the farms that the town serviced, but the search for people with any talent for magic meant eventually every point of Southwall had to be canvassed.

He could still remember the strange men in their robes, not the flashy colors of most of the other schools. Researchers and diplomats, the wizards were also the chief searchers of talent and when they rode up, his stomach had felt fear and respect, while deeper still the boy had felt a sense of wonder as well. When they had tested him and his siblings, the words hadn’t been overly positive. Four wizards made up the team of searchers and one had been left out of the discussion he had noted. A girl not much older than he was, she was an apprentice wizard in white with her brown striped sleeves and brown pants for riding and the girl had looked at him with a certain amount of disdain. If it had been up to her, Sebastian doubted that the offer would have been made to his father.

Standing there listening to the wizards saying that his boy had magic within him that could be trained, his father had looked perplexed by the news. A need to keep his son safe and helping on the farm seemed to wage war with a new fear of him. Magic made people nervous, especially in small towns away from the fear of war. Mera hadn’t seen signs of the emperor’s forces in more than four generations. The farmers of that region were more afraid of wilders losing control and destroying things than an orc or werewolf. Magic was more feared than respected.

With a monthly stipend that had never been disclosed to Sebastian either by the school or his parents, the fifteen year old boy had been shipped off to a school far away from the gently rolling lands of Mera. He had only returned twice to see his family and each time it had been like meeting strangers. Smiles of civility and banter about the basic things masked the chill of their relationship to him. Even his siblings, and older brother and sister remained equally distant from their younger sibling, while his two younger brothers and a little sister seemed unable to see him as someone other than a magic user.

This was the so-called break that the ravens wished him to take and Sebastian looked on his trip to see his family with both hope and dread. He hoped that things would go well and perhaps there would be warmth from his family for their long lost son and brother, but his dread said that it was going to be the same thing all over again. At least this time, the mage was a falcon, leading a team of wizards and mages. If nothing else, Sebastian had friends should his family prove distant once more.

Shaking off worries that he couldn’t control, the mage went to join his team in the courtyard they had been assigned.

Two more days of training went by in a blink. Sebastian and his team had cut the nightly celebration short to be ready for an early morning start. Tired eyes greeted him after the first bell at the earliest breakfast, but he knew that they would be ready. Yara sat beside him even leaning against him as she tried to cover one yawn after another. The two had danced for only a couple hours after dinner, but
even so the healer was having a hard time. Most days during the winter months her day had started at the second bell almost two hours later.

His other other wizards in particular were in a similar state. Only Serrena seemed eager to be on their way. The girl, or young woman as he had to remind himself of the wizard who was actually three years his senior, had kept an almost novice-like eagerness to learn from him. It was almost as if the mizard had become a mentor to the wizard. He felt some of that from the others and the mages as well, but from Serrena in particular, Sebastian felt pressure to teach and guide them to become better versions of who they already were.

At just twenty years old, promoted to falcon little more than half a year ago, Sebastian felt too new to his rank to be put in such a position, but since last summer the mage had been teaching his new magic to others. Now, he taught the ways of battle mages to wizards and the way of being nearly a wizard to battle mages. The strangeness of it all was not lost on him, but the man had been trained to adjust to new situations, not just on the battle field, but in the rest of his life and career. Life went on and you either adjusted or you sat like a stone in the middle of the river just waiting until a big enough storm made you move.

“It is three days ride to Mera as long as the weather doesn’t get too bad,” he reminded his team as they sat eating in various states of consciousness. Collin and Nara seemed especially tired. They had been together after dinner and danced together. A parting reminder to not stay up too late from Sebastian seemed to have not been taken to heart. Of course, there was that possibility that the two had perhaps snuck off for more than just dancing, but he refused to pry into their personal business, just as he hoped no one would pry into his own with Yara. “We should be able to get in some training on the way and hopefully more at my parents’ farm. With winter still holding onto the ground, there should be plenty of open land to practice.”

“The ravens actually ordered you to go visit your family?” Mecklin, the eldest of his mages asked half rhetorically.

At his nod, Liam, his water wizard shook his head, “I remember the last time I was sent to see my family. Actually, they put it as going to visit my home.”

“How old were you when they came for you?” Olan, the dusty haired mage asked. He was a little younger than Liam, but the two had become friends and even seemed to share an affinity for water magic. The mage had learned a few new spells from working with the wizard and Sebastian already.

“Twelve,” the wizard answered and brushed back a stray strand of light brown hair. His blue eyes seemed to look back in thought as he added, “The year before one of the older boys had been taken by Green Hall. I’m not even sure what element he followed. He never washed out as far as I know, but no one in town seemed to know much of what became of him. I’ve been home six times and I know of only two more that had magic talent. A girl, about six years later, came to White Hall. She’s a pretty good nature wizard now, but I haven’t seen her in quite awhile.

“I wonder what happened to her?”

Nara’s attention was piqued by the mention of a fellow nature wizard and asked, “What was her name?”

“Sharamar Blackwood, we used to just call her Sharie though. I always thought her last name was ironic, since she loved nature magic,” Liam mused with a slight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. His blue eyes seemed almost wistful as he thought of the girl from his past.

“I remember Sharie,” the young woman reminisced brushing her brown hair back. Her brown eyes seemed more awake and her energy seemed to be helping Collin to awake as well. “She also had fire red hair. With that name and her hair, you would have thought that she was going to be a fire wizard,” she chuckled. “Last I heard she was serving in Fort Maridith on the southern end of the Dimple Mountains.
They had a forest fire there about three years ago so dozens of wizards were sent to help bring the land back. It’s a big logging town so the faster we could bring it back the better it would be for them.”

“They went to help grow trees just so they can cut them down again?” Olan asked again looking bemused. “Is that what you nature wizards do?”

The woman shrugged as she replied, “Nature, earth and water wizards all work with the land, especially during times like fire and drought. Living this far north, the farmers and others that work with the land need things to work out quickly. No trees mean no logging, but also animals lose homes and food. Healers have even come out to help the wildlife.

“We do all that work and, yes, hunters and loggers tend to undo some of what we’ve done, but the wizards’ guilds have rules and guidelines they have to follow as well. It would be stupid to have them just cut down young trees after we replaced them, but after a time a new generation of loggers will eventually be allowed to work with our trees.

“Nature doesn’t say that man can’t use it, but we work to maintain it so that it remains,” she finished spreading her hands as if to say there was little that she could do.

“I guess that leaves us out and wizards like Serrena,” Frell, the youngest of the battle mages aside from Sebastian, had become friendly with the wizard. Both were of a similar height and age, but the battle mage had blond hair and blue eyes to contrast with the curly auburn hair and green eyes of the wizard. Though they got along quite well, Serrena seemed to take offense at the comment. “I just mean that fire, destruction and combat magic probably aren’t requested much by the nature wizards to take care of the forests.”

Sebastian could tell that the early hour wasn’t working to help Serrena’s mood, and her surly attitude was revealed as the girl retorted, “Sometimes we have to help them, but we usually have more important things to do like keeping the wall protected. The nature wizards aren’t called to the wall because of their type of magic. Taking care of trees and animals comes up less often north of the wall.”

Showing a little bit of temper, Nara simply stuck out her tongue as Collin put a hand on her arm to try and calm his friend. Sebastian noted that everyone looked to be finished with their food at least, so he stood up and stepped back over the bench he shared.

“Time we got moving. Everyone meet at the stables in half an hour. The sooner we start the sooner we get there.”

The sudden movement diffused the argument before the two wizards could truly begin. Most days the group worked well together and got along, but the obvious differences between some of them was as clear as the colors on their robes. Sebastian moved off followed closely by his squad of mages.

Despite the early hour, his team proved themselves professional by showing up in the stable yard to finish readying their mounts. As Sebastian looked at his horse before putting a foot in the stirrup, the mage sighed as he thought of having even more riding ahead. Though Druick’s spell had left him sick from disorientation, the mage wished he had access to magic that could speed up the trip. If there was such a spell, no one had been forth coming about it, although portal magic had been around for over a thousand years. Portaling was beyond him as well anyway. He had read up on it in one of the wizard books, but the information had not been in depth. The mage did understand it took a lot of power and access to another world to achieve the illusion of traveling far.

Grunting to himself, Sebastian shrugged off his unspoken wish and climbed into his saddle. The rest began to follow suit and soon the band was on the road to the southeast and the land that was once his home.