Master Mage (8 page)

“I thought older men tended to wake
with the sun?” Thad asked teasingly.

“Only if they’re married and don’t have
the luxury of a warm, silent house to their lonesome,” Horus
replied, a slight smile creeping on his face. “Well, come in. I
don’t feel like standing in the doorway in my long
clothes.”

“How many mages do we have whose skill
lies with the earth?” Thad asked as soon as he and Horus were
seated by a small fireplace.

“If we count everyone in the village, I
think close to thirty. If we’re only counting those who are
currently training for the war effort, then less than ten,” Horus
replied, his face showing his confusion.

“I need you to get everyone you can to
the new fort being built near the Rane border. Talk to anyone whose
skill lies with the earth element. Beg, plead, even bribe them if
you have to.”

“What do you have in mind?” Horus
asked, leaning forward slightly.

Thad started detailing his plan for
Horus. The more he spoke, the more Horus began to nod along.
“Sounds like a good idea,” Horus said after Thad had finished his
explanation. “I will see what I can do about getting some mages to
that fort of yours.”

“It would be a great help,” Thad said,
shaking his friend’s hand. “Now I have some other things to attend
to if I am going to make this workable by spring.”

Once he was back on his horse, Thad
headed back the way he had come with great speed. Roger and Marcus
should be awake and in the workshop before he arrived back at the
palace. At least he hoped they were. He didn’t fancy having to
search the city for the two enchanters or wait all day for them to
make an appearance.

His stomach growling, Thad made a quick
stop by the kitchens before heading out to the tower. The rest of
the residence had already broken their fast, but thankfully, there
were more than enough leftovers for Thad to have his
fill.

Once his belly was full, Thad made a
straight line for the tower. Inside, he found Marcus working hard
but didn’t see Roger anywhere in sight. “Marcus, do you know where
Roger is at?” Thad asked, wanting both mages there before he
started his explanation.

“That scatterbrain headed into town to
see if the blacksmiths had any more rings made up for us. He should
be back within the hour. Unless he gets himself lost,” Marcus said,
never taking his eyes off his work.

“Might as well use my time wisely,”
Thad said to himself as he picked up one of the small steel rings
inset with a brown crystal. Thad focused his mind and started
working on the enchantment. It wasn’t for a shield like the others
had been, and he knew it would be a weak comparison to what he
really needed made, but it would have to suffice until he and the
others had proper items for the enchantment.

“Thad. Didn’t expect to see you here
this time of day,” Roger said as he set a small bag of rings on the
counter. “What brings you out?”

“This,” Thad replied, holding up the
steel ring he had been working on. “I have an idea, but for it to
work, we are going to need at least two dozen spades with this
enchantment.”

Marcus and Roger examined the ring
closely. “I wouldn’t be able to do that enchantment at all, Thad. I
can see how it works, but it’s just outside of my ability,” Roger
said, shaking his head, his lips pursed tightly
together.

“I can do them, but they’re going to
take a bit more gems and a lot more work than one of your rings,”
Marcus replied after a few moments.

“I know, but first, we need the
materials. What do we have?”

“Your elfin friend Parson just sent
back a nice-sized load of gems, including a fair amount of those
tigereyes you have been going on about. As for the spades, Roger,
he can run back to the smithy and to the other shops and see what
he can get his hands on,” Marcus replied, tugging on his
beard.

As Roger rushed out to procure the
spades, Thad and Marcus started separating the gems that would be
used in the enchantment. Thad was amazed at the large amount of
gems that Parson had been able to find with Avalanche’s help. If
they were to be sold at the market, Thad was sure that one could
buy a small kingdom with them. Shrugging his shoulders, Thad
upended one of the heavy bags onto the table.

Using his mage sight, Thad picked out
the gems that held the strongest affinity for the earth element.
When he had first thought of the plan, he had feared that they
wouldn’t have enough supplies to complete the project, but now
those fears had been swept aside.

Roger returned a little over an hour
later, carrying nine spades in his arms. “This was all I could
find, but the blacksmiths agreed to make another two dozen within a
fortnight, though they weren’t happy with it.”

“I don’t care if they’re happy with it
as long as they do it,” Thad replied, taking one of the shovels
from Roger.

Thad stayed late working on the shovels
completely, two before his strength was completely spent. As far as
enchantments went, it was complex. As far as how it worked, it was
simple. As soon as the spade touched dirt or rock, it would break
apart the bonds holding the earth together within a one-foot
radius. It was similar to the enchantment he had used back in Rane,
but without knowing what kinds of earth might need to be broken
down. He had to add in a much wider array of spells.

His head throbbing, Thad stumbled
through the palace halls toward his chambers only to be stopped by
one of the queen’s pages. Thad held up his hand, silencing the
young girl before she could speak. “Let me guess—the queen is
demanding my presence. Might as well get this over with. Where is
she?”

“She is in her study,” the page
replied, a thin smirk spreading across her face. Thad never liked
it when the pages seemed happy. It usually meant that the queen was
in a very precarious mood.

“You called,” Thad called as he lightly
knocked on the door to the queen’s study.

“Come in, Thad,” Maria answered, her
voice stern and cold.

“Why in the nine hells did you barge
into my meeting today? Lady Talia was in an uproar over it. Do you
have any idea how much of a pain one angry noble can make for us
right now?”

“My apologies. I just didn’t have time
to wait. Eloen said that she could pass word on to a group of
mercenaries called the Katanga. I needed to know what we could
afford,” Thad explained pacifyingly.

“The Katanga,” Maria said, her lips
pursed into a thin white line. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? I
would empty the vaults to hire the Katanga.”

“Both you and Eloen seem to think
highly of these mercenaries. Just who are they?” Thad asked, his
interest piqued.

“They are by far the best fighting
force known in all of Kurt. Any king or queen who has had them on
their side during a battle has never lost. The odd thing is they
don’t just fight for gold. There are plenty of stories where one
kingdom offered them great ricks and another offered them only a
paltry sum in comparison, but they chose the smaller
amount.”

“Why didn’t you try to hire them
earlier?” Thad asked, confused.

Maria sat back in her chair and gave a
heavy sigh. “It’s not that easy, Thad. You don’t just hire the
Katanga as if you were simply chartering a boat. They’re hard to
find, and even if you do find one, most the time, they will seldom
hear out your request. From most of the stories I have heard, it is
normally the Katanga themselves who come offering their aid along
with a price.”

“Hopefully, they will side with us and
not decide to join Rane,” Thad said, his expression
worried.

“If the Katanga decides to join Rane’s
forces, we might as well start digging our graves,” Maria replied
without a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

CHAPTER VII

The next few days were filled with
tedium as Thad spent most of his time inside the confines of the
tower, working on the magical spades. As mundane as the items
seemed, they were a big part of his plans for the war.

The day before the final spade was
finished, the first heavy snows started to fall around the capital.
Thad wished they had held off for a few days more, but there was
little he could do to control nature.

With the spades finished and on their
way to the eastern fort, Thad had plenty of things to catch up on.
Thad had asked the queen for a more permanent name, but she assured
him that the best names were not chosen but earned.

With the first snow also came the
feeling of time running out and the gathering of the war council.
The council was not large and only consisted of those that both
Thad and Maria trusted. Thad looked around at the mixed group.
Duchess Alysia, whose niece was now queen of Abla, was one of the
few nobles Thad trusted and was in charge of troop supply.
Meredith, a scholar from the royal school who had taken up an
almost obsessive study of magic since she had heard of Thad, was in
charge of magical assistance, though her task was mostly procuring
items that the mages needed for their craft. Kain, the elfin
captain, was to be in charge of the naval fleet made up of a mix of
elfin and Farlan ships. Ferula, an elfin maiden who Reeve had sent,
was in charge of the elfin forces. General Foreman, who had been
moved from Southpass Fort, was to take charge of the combined
Farlan forces. Lastly, there was Horus, who was in charge of the
battle mages.

“How many troops do we have available?”
Maria asked, looking around the table, a grave look upon her
face.

“We have 1,845 on the most up-to-date
count. We are asking that anyone of fighting age report, and many
are heeding the call, but we are still vastly outnumbered,” General
Foreman replied with a dour face.

“You have 230 elves at your command,
Your Majesty,” Ferula said when the queen looked in her direction.
“I know we are a small number, but at soon as the ice flows pass,
there shall be more than two thousand of our kin joining
you.”

“That is good to know, Ferula, but it
will do little good should we fall in the first week of spring,”
Maria replied as she scratched notes onto a sheet of parchment.
“How many of the mages have agreed to fight?” Maria asked, turning
to Horus.

“Only 118 battle mages, but we have
another 22 support mages,” Horus replied, his face between shame
and anger.

“That gives us a force of around 2,100
against a force that is reported to be over 12,000 and growing
daily. The question I have is how do we win?” Maria asked as she
looked at them with piercing eyes.

“Without more men, I don’t see how we
can,” General Foreman said matter-of-factly.

“Well, we better find a way to win. I
will not have the country left to me by my mother destroyed during
my reign,” Maria replied stubbornly.

As the meeting wore on, Thad listened,
but few had any real ideas on how they were expected to beat an
army that was more than ten times their size. Thad had accomplished
such a feat, but it was one thing to lead around a thousand
soldiers and take them out slowly, and he doubted that the same
tactics would work against ten thousand.

As the winter snows deepened, the war
councils continued. Thad attended each meeting, but they all seemed
the same with little new developments.

It wasn’t until midwinter that Thad
received word from Tuck, who had been eerily silent since he had
informed Thad he would be delayed in returning.

“We are only a few leagues
from the capital,”
Tuck declared
proudly.

“We? Who have you brought with you?”
Thad asked, both surprised and happy to hear from his elfin friend.
He had started to think the elf had gotten himself lost in the deep
snows.

“You will find out within the hour,”
Tuck replied, his voice thick with laughter. “I don’t want to ruin
the surprise.”

Less than an hour later, a young page
burst into his chambers, his face red and creased with worry.
“Master Thad, there is a large army approaching from the
south.”

Thad jumped to his feet. Had the
Brotherhood risked moving in the dead of winter in the hopes of
taking the capital undefended? If they had, then they would most
likely succeed. It wasn’t until he was halfway down the stone steps
that Thad remembered Tuck’s words. He hoped the approaching army
was Tuck’s “surprise.”

It wasn’t until Thad reached the palace
gates that he started to realize how weak the Farlan capital was.
It had a fair-sized wall, but against a real army, it would be
easily scaled or torn down. The gates, while looking large and
imposing, had not been used in centuries, and Thad honestly doubted
they would withstand a single strike from a battering ram. Every
time he scanned the city, he saw more weaknesses, including no
place with easy access so that he could view the approaching
army.

Running to the wall surrounding the
southern side of the city, Thad quickly gathered his magical energy
and started the workings of a spell. When he was only a few yards
from the wall, Thad released his spell, making a bridge out of
energy. Thad had often made illusions that had substance to them
but had only used them for entertainment or as a weapon. On Horus’s
suggestion, he started looking at other ways to use his magic. “We
won’t always be at war,” the older mage had told him.