Master Mage (24 page)

The Rane army had left early the day
before, but they were moving slowly, and the Farlan army was
already positioned ahead of them. Knowing it wasn’t a race to the
capital, Thad was able to dismiss some of his fears, but many of
them lingered in his mind.

He knew that once they reached their
destination, they would no longer be able to fall back easily.
Every inch of ground they gave was that much closer the Rane army
would come to winning the war. The mages and other magical races
could continue to run and hide as they had for centuries, but it
was not the same. Farlan was the first place where they had been
welcomed openly, and Thad was not about to lose that or the home he
had fought so hard for.

That night, as they made camp, Thad
could tell that tension was high among the soldiers. There was no
mischief or drinking, and they all talked in hushed whispers as if
afraid that if they spoke their fears too loudly, they would come
true. It was an odd feeling seeing everyone so quiet. It reminded
him of the night before Digger’s Fort fell.

Thad found Jayden among the other
troops that had come to serve under his direct command. They were a
rough group and made up of the soldiers that didn’t seem to fit in
with the other units. Dwarves, elves, and humans all worked
together in his small force, just over four hundred
strong.

Now that the army was no longer
breaking apart daily, even Tuck had joined his ranks. Reeve had
offered to let the young elf continue working with him, but Tuck
had been adamant about fighting alongside him. Thad was happy to
have the elf counted as one of his men, but he hoped that it
wouldn’t set back his training too much. Tuck had shown great skill
for the assassination arts from what Reeve had told him.

Avalanche and Arianna sat by the fire,
surrounded by a large number of soldiers who had taken the duo up
as the unofficial mascots of the unit. One of the men had even
taken the time to sew a makeshift flag with the two presented on
it. Thad never understood why the different units had a man carry a
banner, but it seemed to boost the men’s morale, so he had left it
alone.

“Missing your wife?” Thad asked Jayden
as he took a seat beside the burly man.

“Yes, though I feel better knowing that
she is out of harm’s way. I always slightly feared that the lines
would break and that she and the child would be killed,” Jayden
replied, sighing lightly.

“I know that we may need the aid of
some of the healers we sent away, but there is just too much danger
in the coming battles. It is completely possible that our entire
force will fall during the first battle.”

“Don’t let the other men hear you
saying that,” Jayden said quietly. “Most of them have agreed to
fight next to you because you tend to bring most of them back
alive. If they think you have lost hope, then their morale will
fall faster than a boulder.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Thad
replied. “Don’t stay up too late. We have another full day of
marching ahead of us if we are to stay ahead of Rane,” Thad said,
getting up and retiring to his own bedroll.

As he slept, Thad felt the darkness
begin to pull him down once again. He tried to fight against it,
having no desire to talk with the queen given his present mood, but
it was a wasted effort. As the darkness cleared, Thad found himself
in his own chambers. Thad looked around and found that everything
was still in the places he had left them. It felt odd as he
surveyed the room. It was as if the past weeks of battle had been
nothing but a dream. Thad found Maria sitting comfortably on his
bed, her face torn between curiosity and anger.

“I have not heard a scrap of news from
you or any of my generals in quite some time,” Maria
accused.

“Things have changed and not for the
better,” Thad replied hesitantly. “Rane has split their forces, and
they are en route to the capital. We have moved ahead of them, but
it seems the time for playing has come to an end.”

“Then it seems like it is time for you
to come back to the palace,” Maria said, jumping to her feet.
“There is no reason that you must be present on the battlefield.
Should the army fail, we will need you here to help protect the
city.”

“As much as I would like at least one
more night in the comfort of my own bed, I don’t think that would
be wise,” Thad replied, giving the queen a sad smile. “Many of the
soldiers and other leaders are looking to me, and sometimes it is
only my word that will make them agree on a single course. If I
were to abandon the army now, there is no telling how long they
would hold together as a united force.”

“Why does it have to be you?” Maria
said, weeping. “You are not some hero from legend. You are not so
strong that you can topple mountains with your magic nor are you
such a skilled swordsman that you can best a hundred men
single-handedly. There are dozens of people who are better suited
for leading the charge than you are. So why does it have to be
you?”

Thad felt his heart go out to Maria as
she wept. “I don’t know why it has to be, just that it does. The
magical races have gathered around me, and you are the one that put
me in charge of the war so your generals will at least heed my
words.”

“But I didn’t think that would mean you
would spend all your time in battle,” Maria said, cutting him off.
“Most generals watch the battle from a distance as their men do the
fighting.”

“I cannot do that, Maria,” Thad
replied, his own eyes starting to tear up as the pressure from the
war was let loose. “I have watched countless men die on my orders,
and it has nearly broken me. If I had to watch it from afar knowing
that I might have at least saved one more with my own blade, I
would have long since lost what little hold I have left on my
sanity.”

The darkness started to surround Thad
once again as Maria lost control of her own powers. Unlike many
times before, it was not a slow release but more as if he had been
kicked out of her dream, leaving him reeling in the recesses of his
own mind.

Thad jumped up, awake, his head
splitting from the hasty departure from Maria’s dream world. As he
held his head, cupped in his hands, Thad reminded himself not to
upset the queen next time she called upon him. He had often heard
that making a woman mad was seldom worth the headache, but this was
going a bit too far.

Thad had hoped that his head would stop
pounding after a few hours, but it persisted throughout the day.
The sound of his horse’s hooves and the noise of the many boots
slapping against the ground each rang through his mind like a
dagger. To make matters worse, there wasn’t even a cloud in the sky
to hold back the rays of the sun that seemed to bore directly into
his brain like little arrows.

“You don’t look so well,” Arianna said
in her high-pitched voice, making Thad flinch. “You remind me of
the dwarves when they drink too much. Did you drink last night? I
heard that if you drink more, it will help. It’s odd that it helps
if you drink more when the drink is what causes the pain. Do you
want me to find one of the dwarves and see if they have anything to
drink?” the little childlike fairy said, flying right next to
Thad.

“Quiet, please,” Thad pleaded. “All I
need is quiet.”

“Oh, is that all you need? I know
something that can make everything quiet. We used to use it on
people to make them think they had gone deaf,” Arianna said, waving
her hand in Thad’s direction, then suddenly, everything went
silent.

Thad tried to say something, but his
words never reached his ears. Nodding his head in thanks toward
Arianna, Thad smiled slightly as a great deal of his pain seemed to
disappear.

The Farlan army marched late into the
night, almost until sunrise the next morning, before making camp.
Bache seemed to want to get to their destination in haste. Thad
didn’t know if the man wanted more time to prepare or if he feared
the Rane army had somehow overtaken them, but he was glad once they
finally bedded down for the night.

Shortly after he lay down, Arianna’s
spell started to fade, and the noise around him came crashing in
like waves to a shore. His head felt much better, but the breaking
of the silence had come as a surprise, making the mage jump up out
of his bedroll and garner more than a few uneasy stares. Laughing
about his own actions, Thad returned to his covers and tried to
sleep, though his ears still picked up the talk of the nearby
soldiers.

Many of the men were talking about
family and what they were going to do once the war ended. Thad
couldn’t help but to smile as he heard some of the more outlandish
desires the men held.

After listening to the men talking
about their dreams, Thad started wondering about his own. What
would he do if he survived the war and Farlan won? He had once
thought about opening a school for magic like what had once stood
before the Fae War. It still seemed like a good idea, and now that
he had found other mages, it was a task that he might not have to
take on alone.

With the thoughts of what might lie in
the future roaming through his mind, Thad drifted off into the
first peaceful sleep he had since the beginning of the
war.

CHAPTER XIX

Thad stood beside Killian as they
awaited the arrival of the Katanga reinforcements. Unlike the
dwarves or elves, the Katanga didn’t have a uniform. The only way
to tell who they were was by the red cloth that each wore, though
where they were located varied. Killian had once explained to Thad
that the location of the cloth had great meaning to the
Katanga.

The mercenary army stopped a few yards
away from their camp. Three older warriors separated themselves
from the others and walked toward them. Thad guessed that the men
must have been the prospective warmasters of their clans and had
come to talk to either himself or Killian about the war.

“Warmaster Killian, it took us far
longer to gather enough men than expected. I hope our delay has not
caused undue trouble for you and your patrons,” one of the men
said, holding out his hand toward Killian.

“It has been a bloody battle, Warmaster
Yardol, and your swords would have greatly aided us, but battle is
never without its problems. I am just glad that you and yours have
come to our call,” Killian replied, taking the other man’s offered
hand.

“Do you really think that if all goes
well, they will aid us in recovering our own lands?” a second
warmaster asked.

Killian gave the man who had spoken a
withering glare. “That is for another time. First, we must win the
war that is in front of us. None of us have any love for Rane, and
it is high time we showed them what a Katanga blade can
do.”

“Right you are, my friend,” Yardol
replied with a hearty grin. “Since you have been in the thick of
this war, we will continue to let you represent us. That is, unless
you think another might be better suited for the task.”

“As you have said, I have been here and
know the others well. I think it would be a wise choice to let me
continue speaking on our behalf in this matter,” Killian said with
a hint of relief echoing in his voice. “Let me present you to
Master Torin, the mage who has been appointed by this land’s queen
to lead the battle. He is a bit young and makes the normal mistakes
of the young, but he has proven himself a quick learner and not too
terribly daft to the ways of combat.”

“So this is the mage that all the fuss
was about. It had been a long time since anyone had dared to stand
up against the Brotherhood. A bit foolish in its execution, but you
can’t deny the boy has some guts in him,” Yardol said, offering his
hand to Thad.

“I have been in awe of the Katanga
forces since I have first seen them in action. I am glad to have
more of your skilled warriors with us in battle. We will need them
in the coming days,” Thad said, trying not to embarrass
himself.

Thad and Killian introduced the other
warmasters to the rest of the military council. It was a bit tense
when the mercenaries met with the dwarves as Ironleg didn’t seem to
like them much and had no trouble letting it be known. He had heard
the dwarf say more than once that men who fight for money weren’t
to be trusted.

Thad could understand the dwarf’s
feelings, but when they were in need of the mercenaries’ swords was
not the time to voice them. Luckily for Thad, the stubborn dwarf
held his tongue for the most part, though Thad was sure that was
more of Crusher’s doing as his friend was never far away from the
dwarven general.

Though Thad didn’t like Ironleg, he had
to admit the dwarf was a competent leader on the battlefield. In
the few encounters they had since his arrival, the dwarf had been
keeping the Rane army at bay, and he was sure he would continue to
do so.

While the others talked, Thad found
himself staring at the map lying on the table. It had little pins
showing where each battle had taken place. It was easy to see how
much ground they had lost and how little was left before Rane would
be right on the doorstep of the palace.

Thad and everyone knew that the Rane
army was close and that not long after the sun rose the following
day, the largest battle since the start of the war would commence.
Thad and his small band would be situated on the northern eastern
edge of the combined forces, where Killian suspected the enemy’s
light cavalry to be. Thad’s job was simple, keep the horsemen from
circling around behind them. It was simple but would not be easily
accomplished.