Lusam: The Dragon Mage Wars Book Three (63 page)

“Yes,
Baliaeter
. Of course, please forgive me,” he said through gritted teeth. Zedd wanted nothing more than to kill the man, but not in front of thousands of witnesses. Instead he fought against his natural urges and simply nodded his head to the
Vintenar’s
subservience. Zedd knew as soon as he saw the arrow exactly who it was below them, and he knew how accurate she was with her weapon. He had already had the misfortune of losing men to this female paladin, and he didn’t intend to lose any more than he had to now. He gave the order to move back two hundred paces away from the cliff-top, whilst he thought of a plan to end the threat from below.

A moment later a fresh volley of arrows sailed high into the air, but came down harmlessly in the now open space before them. If he had not already moved his men, more of them would have certainly died. His mind raced at what to do next. He tried to put himself in the position of the enemy, and asked himself what he would do next. It seemed obvious to him; they would want to know why their latest volley of arrows failed to hit anything.

“
I want every man on the front row ready to fire. They will send a scout out into the open to see why their last volley of arrows failed to hit anything. When they do, fire on them,
” Zedd silently commanded through his Necromatic ring to his new army. They waited several more minutes before Zedd was proven correct, and over a hundred magi opened fire on a paladin as he emerged out into the open. The paladin managed to narrowly avoid being struck by a number of the missiles, before disappearing once more behind the cover of the cliff-tops.

Zedd realised too late the implications of the paladin seeing where they were, as another volley of arrows emerged from below the cliff-tops to claim another six of his men’s lives. Zedd roared in anger and frustration. He didn’t care about the men’s lives, but he wouldn’t be denied his victory by a single girl. Again, he ordered his men to retreat another hundred paces. He decided he would collapse a section of the cliff on top of her, but first he needed to know exactly where she was.

“You!” Zedd commanded, pointing to a man at the front. He came running over to stand in front of Zedd.

“Yes, sir?” the man replied standing to attention.

“Go take a look over the edge of the cliff-top and see where those arrows are coming from.”

“Yes, sir,” the man repeated, and set off towards the edge of the cliff-tops. Once he was close enough to the edge, he dropped down to his hands and knees and peered over at the enemy below. It was the last thing he ever did. A heartbeat later his death-pulse was felt by all, and he slumped to the ground where he was, never to move again.

Zedd turned back towards his army and pointed to another man. “You! Go take a look,” he said. The man’s face visibly paled, and he hesitated a moment too long for Zedd’s liking. Zedd reached towards the man’s Necromatic ring with his mind, and drained every drop of magic from the man instantly. He dropped like a sack of coal to the ground, and his death-pulse was felt by all on the cliff-top.

Zedd knew that if he was to gain the men’s unquestioning loyalty, he had to show them that he could not be trifled with. Sure enough, the next man Zedd pointed to carried out his orders without hesitation. He reached the edge of the cliff and peered over the edge, then he turned and started to run a zigzag course back towards Zedd’s position. Everyone watched in utter astonishment as a glowing arrow crested the cliff-top, then followed the man’s zigzag retreat precisely, before striking him cleanly through the heart from behind. The man stood still for a moment looking down at the arrow protruding from his chest, then looked up at Zedd in sheer bewilderment, before finally falling forward. His death-pulse was felt before he even hit the floor.

Zedd was beginning to become more and more infuriated by the unfolding events, and he had to remind himself that he had already won this battle. The city’s shield had already been destroyed, as had most of the southern part of Lamuria. There was no longer any reason to engage this female paladin at the bottom of the cliffs on her terms. Soon the gates of the city would be breached, or they would simply destroy the wall and enter that way. Either way, Zedd and his men would soon be making their way into the valley bottom to claim the city, and they could deal with the paladins then.

Regardless that he no longer felt it necessary to check the position of the female paladin, Zedd still contemplated sending
Vintenar
Nahau to take a look, but decided against it. Instead, he would let him live, knowing that every day of his life he would be reminded of how Zedd had stolen this victory away from his friend
Baliaeter
Varorde. It would be Zedd’s name that was remembered throughout history, not
Baliaeter
Varorde’s, and certainly not
Vintenar
Nahau’s.

Zedd was already aware that the only way down to Lamuria was at the far end of the valley. He knew there were several single file tracks leading down into the valley at his end, but they would leave his men extremely exposed to attack, and it would take far too long to get them all down into the valley below. The problem was, since
Baliaeter
Varorde had ordered all of the undead-minions to attack the city gates, it had also had the added effect of concentrating all of the paladins towards that end of the valley too.

After a moment he realised there might be a way to potentially solve three problems at once. If he recalled all of the undead to attack the paladins at the base of the cliff, then they began to attack the wall again once the paladins were dead, it would draw the other paladins towards his end of the valley. That would hopefully take them away from both the city gates, and the road leading down into the valley. Once the paladins had taken the bait, he could leave several hundred of his men in full view to keep the paladins busy, while he secretly took the rest of his force and circled around to the north end of the valley. If his plan succeeded, they would emerge undetected at the far end of the valley with an almost unrestricted path to the city gates. A few well placed magical-missiles and the gates would yield without much of a problem now the city’s shield was down. More importantly, if they caught the paladins unaware, and launched a sudden massive attack from their rear, they could devastate their numbers before they even knew what had hit them.

Zedd issued his new orders, recalling all of the undead army to attack the paladins at the base of the cliff, then he patiently waited for them to arrive. He left his own undead-minions at the far end of the valley, as well as Cole’s, making sure he would have them as additional protection when he arrived there later.

The undead army had not made it halfway across the valley floor, before a bright flash in the sky caught Zedd’s attention. His jaw hung slack at the sight before him. Where there had been only empty sky above the Deceiver’s High Temple a moment earlier, now there was a giant glowing crystal. It hovered motionless in the sky, pulsing with a bright blue light against the late afternoon sky.

Zedd formed a small fireball in his right hand, and sent it towards the strange object in the sky. He watched as it arced through the air towards the strange object in the sky, then gasped loudly when his missile impacted harmlessly on the city’s invisible shield.

“No!” he screamed at the sky. Filled with rage he ordered every magi to open fire of the city’s shield. Then he watched open-mouthed as a single figure emerged from within the Deceiver’s High Temple, one with an aura so bright it was impossible to look directly at it. He knew instantly it was the boy-mage, and he also knew it was time to leave.

Lusam emerged from the High Temple into the late afternoon sun. He no longer shuttered away his aura from view, but instead, he let the full power of it be seen by all. The new magical knowledge the Guardian book had imbued him with, had now become much clearer to him. He knew the Empire magi no longer posed a threat to him or the city, and he wanted to give them every opportunity to retreat by revealing his true magical strength to them. Even though he knew they almost certainly wouldn’t.

Lusam could feel the pulse of the city’s power source above him now, and when he looked up, he was surprised to see it glowing incredibly brightly, not only to his mage-sight, but also to his regular sight.

As he walked towards the city wall, the utter devastation the Empire magi had wreaked on the southern part of Lamuria became evident. Everything had been destroyed. Not a single building or structure remained standing. He scanned the remains of the buildings with his mage-sight for any signs of life, but found none.

Lusam levitated himself onto the top of the city wall in full view of the Empire magi above. He could see the thousands of undead on the battlefield below him, all connected to their masters on the cliff-tops above by a thin strand-of-power. Instantly he knew the reason why necromancy had never been used during the Dragon-Mage Wars. He remembered how Renn had told him that the vile art of necromancy had been created by the dark God Aamon, and how it had been used before the Great Rift had been torn open to raise vast undead armies. But after the Guardians had been created, it suddenly vanished from use again. It was not used again until much later in the Empire’s history, long after the Guardians had vanished from the world. The reason for this was now glaringly obvious to Lusam; necromancy had an inherently fatal flaw. A flaw that left the users of it vulnerable and exposed to anyone powerful enough to detect and manipulate those tenuous magical connections.

Lusam quickly appraised the battlefield below. He could clearly see that most of the remaining paladins were towards the rear of the undead army, and pursuing them towards the base of the southern cliffs. Then he noticed a small group of about fifteen paladins trapped between the cliffs and the advancing undead army. He watched as the undead army surrounded the paladins, forcing them into an ever tightening group behind their own shields. He immediately recognised two of the paladins as Alexia and Hershel, and breathed a sigh of relief at seeing them both still alive and well.

With a single thought, Lusam created a magical barrier around the group of stranded paladins, then expanded it explosively. The surrounding undead army were scattered across the battlefield like chaff to the wind. It only took the paladins a moment to notice Lusam standing on the city wall, and the cheer they gave was audible even to him. Lusam gently levitated the group of paladins within the safety of his magical barrier, and tightly skirted the base of the cliffs with them. He knew he would have to expose his magical barrier to the attacks of the Empire magi for a short period of time—while he crossed the open area between the base of the cliffs and the city wall—but he was not unduly concerned about it. Most of the Empire magi were already focusing their fire on his position, so when the group of paladins suddenly emerged from behind the cover of the cliffs, only a handful of missiles struck his magical barrier before he brought them within the safety of the city’s shield.

It saddened Lusam greatly that revealing his aura to the Empire magi had done little to dissuade their attack on Lamuria. He didn’t want to kill all those men, but they seemed to be leaving him with little choice. He simply knew he had to stop them. He said a silent prayer to Aysha, asking her for the strength to do what must be done, and for her to take the souls of the men he was about to kill into her care. He knew they didn’t worship Aysha, but they were still men—they were still
her
creation.

“Lusam!” Alexia called out excitedly as she sprinted up to him, closely followed by Hershel and the rest of his group.

“Please, tell us you have some good news,” Hershel said, looking a little worried.

Using his mage-sight, Lusam looked out over the battlefield at the tens of thousands of undead, all clearly linked to their masters above on the cliff-tops.

“Tell me Hershel, do the history books tell us why necromancy stopped being used after the Guardians were created?” Lusam asked quietly. Hershel thought for a moment before he replied.

“No, they don’t, only that the Guardian’s easily destroyed the undead armies of Aamon’s followers, but nobody knows for certain how they did it,” Hershel replied.

“I do,” Lusam said, stepping off the city wall.

Even before he had stepped outside the protection of the city’s shield, Lusam had already tapped into thousands of lines-of-power leading back to the magi on the cliff-tops. He levitated himself quickly to the valley floor below, absorbing the impact of hundreds of missiles as he did so. Once he became a stationary target, those numbers increased dramatically, but it was already too late for the Empire magi.

Lusam expanded his shield to make contact with thousands of the undead on the battlefield, and tapped directly into the tenuous connections they had with their masters on the cliff-tops above. He forced open those tiny power conduits, and drained the power directly from the Empire magi to feed his own magical shield. Every impact on his shield drained more and more power from the Empire magi above.