Rise of the Mages (Rise of the Mages 2) (36 page)

The trebuchet launched.

A stone the size of Brant’s chest hurtled toward him. He flinched as the wall a few feet below him shuddered.

Too close.

One of the duke’s soldiers leaned over to look at where the stone hit.

Another launch. Another hit several feet to Brant’s right. The wall shook again.

The leaning soldier lost his balance. His arms flailed, trying to find purchase. Brant darted toward him, but he was too far away. The soldier tumbled over the parapet, landing with a terrible crunch thirty feet below.

Brant grimaced. What a terrible way to go, not even having a chance to take any of the enemy with you.

A shout arose in the distance. Truna’s army, fifteen hundred strong, charged. Men, horses, and siege machines moved as one. The ground trembled.

Brant’s hands shook. His first real action. Time to go to work.

A team of more than a hundred burgundy-clad soldiers carried a bridge toward the moat. Wood and wet animal skins sheltered them, but that shouldn’t matter to an expert archer.

Brant raised his bow, chose a target, and shot. Too short. Too soon. Rookie mistake.

He took a deep breath and waited before shooting again. The arrow struck center mass, the added speed from the height driving it through armor. His first real kill.

Nice.

He shot again. Another kill. And another. A miss. Blast it!

Enemy horse archers returned the favor. Arrows whizzed past Brant. A soldier to his right was struck in the shoulder.

A deep breath followed by a shot. Hit.

Men around Brant fell, as did others holding the bridge. Not enough of those, though. Irdrin’s men got the span into place. If only he could crush them where they stood, but he wasn’t about to disobey orders again.

Besides, arrows were cleaner. More fair.

A stone crashed into the parapet not ten yards to Brant’s right. Chunks showered the platform. Two soldiers collapsed, blood trickling from beneath their helmets.

They should be fine. Minor wounds.

Instead, blood gushed out. What the blast? Could it be magic?

Five figures stood behind the enemy army. Too far away to make out the uniforms without a spyglass, but were those the enemy death mages? The number was correct.

He viewed them through the magic, making sure to look at both them and the duke’s soldiers at the same time. Sure enough, black lines stretched from two of the mages.

Why hadn’t the wounded men died yet then?

Brant glanced about. Lucan stood on the ground inside the wall. Thin lines split from him to each to the wounded men.

Boom!

The wall shook. A battering ram slammed into the gate.

Barely aiming, considering the number of targets below, Brant shot arrow after arrow.

A crew near him poured a great vat of steaming oil over the parapet, and Brant cheered along with his comrades at the resulting screams. Another stone launched in his direction, but he barely paid it any attention. He shot another arrow.

Crunch!

Brant fell. He hit the platform. A chunk of wall toppled toward him.

The world went black.

Tasia bent over a hospital bed and carefully lifted a blood-soaked bandage.

“How is it?” the soldier said.

He’d never regain full use of his right arm. If only she’d learned how to use magic. Not that the knowledge would have helped since she wouldn’t have been allowed to use it.

“You’re going to be just fine.” She smiled and handed him a wad of painkilling herbs baked in sugar. “Chew on this.”

He grimaced as he did. There was only so much that could be done to hide the bitterness.

“This is going to sting,” she said.

He nodded and clenched his left hand tight around the bed frame.

It was her turn to grimace as she poured potion on a gaping hole where an arrow had been removed. The soldier’s left hand shook, and he gritted his teeth. She could only imagine how much it hurt.

“You’re so brave not to cry out.” Mimicking Ashley, she batted her eyes. “Your girlfriend is going to flip over the scar.”

He blushed and shook his head.

“No girlfriend?” She gently patted at the wound with a clean cloth. “I find that hard to believe.”

A shy smile split his face.

“Well, you’ll be flirting with barmaids in no time. I’m Tasia. Call out if you need me.”

Two more patients had been brought in while she’d dealt with him. Less than ten empty beds remaining despite having packed so many in that there was barely room to move between. There’d be no help for it but to send the least injured to the courtyard.

Tasia examined the new patients. The first only had a gash, so she dispatched another helper to bind it. The other needed no treatment.

She called an orderly to cart the body to the cellar. So young. So sad. No time to mourn, though. Five more stretchers arrived from the surgery tent.

After assessing the first four, she bent to examine the last. Blood dripped from soaked bandages. His forehead could only be described as dented. After lifting his eyelid, she inspected for any sign of life. He still breathed but would never wake. And she didn’t even have the bed space for him to die in peace.

She signaled for orderlies to take him to the cellar.

As they carted him away, she glanced at him one last time. Something about the shape of his face tickled her memory.

“Wait!” She rushed to the boy. Under swelling and bruises and streams of red, she recognized him.

Emry Rilee.

The last time she’d seen him, he’d been eating a vibrant red apple at Miln’s house. His wedding was to be in the spring. She’d already commissioned a butter churn to give him and Myra.

Tasia choked back a sob as she stared at him. Heal. Life flow into him! Nothing happened.

How did magic work? In the past, it had taken her hours and hours of praying, but surely, there was a faster way. What did she need to do? Why hadn’t she let Xan teach her?

She closed her eyes. The duke’s orders. Even if she had the time or the knowledge, she didn’t have permission. But the duke surely wouldn’t want one of his soldiers to die unnecessarily. Right? He would if it meant keeping the duchy safe.

Tasia waved the orderlies to continue their grisly task and had another of the senior helpers take over triage duties. She busied herself changing bandages on an unconscious patient.

How would she ever face Myra?

Tasia threw herself into her work, not stopping until the doctors arrived from the tents near the wall. She hadn’t even realized the thuds from the trebuchets and the horns had stopped. Though the physicians looked even more bone weary than she felt, no one would begrudge her a short rest.

The door opened, and Lucan marched in, two guards flanking him. His black cloak and blond hair trailed after him dramatically. He strode directly to the worst case in the room and spent a half minute hovering over the man before moving to another soldier on the edge of death.

Tasia rushed to the first patient Lucan had attended and felt for the man’s pulse. It was strong and steady. Why was Lucan allowed to heal when she wasn’t? He attended five more soldiers, including one she had thought was in fine shape, before he moved to leave the hospital.

“Lucan, wait.” She led him outside away from prying ears. “What can your—our—power do?”

He looked her up and down, evaluating her, but not like Brant. Lucan’s look weighed her worth, asked if she deserved his knowledge.

“You are a healer, yes?”

She nodded.

He sighed. “You know that if more life force flows out of a person than is coming in, that person dies?”

She nodded again.

“Increasing life force into a person can’t—say—regrow a limb, but it does boost healing. Enough to stabilize a patient so he won’t die.”

“Can it cure brain injuries?”

“Not always.” He shrugged. “Most of the time.”

A tear leaked from her eye. “There are more men suffering. Even the ones you helped still suffer. Why don’t you do something!”

He scowled. “Why don’t you?”

“I don’t … I can’t—” Why hadn’t she?

“You follow your lord duke’s command as I do,” he said. “Miraculous recoveries would be evidence of magic use.”

How could she value her uncle’s order more than Emry’s life? Tasia stumbled away, her face buried, and tripped on a raised flagstone, nearly falling.

“Girl, wait.”

Footsteps approached her from behind. A hand touched her shoulder. She tried to shrug it off, but Lucan persisted.

“The day has been long,” he said. “That was unfair.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Lucan gently spun her and pulled her hands from her face. “Duke Asher has valid reasons. You were right to take heed.” He paused. “I, too, abhor the suffering, but there’s only so much a mage can do, especially after an entire day spent using magic. Overextending is a real danger.”

She raised her eyebrows, curious despite herself.

“Think of the power as flowing through a tube, one that’s blocked from years of disuse. Practice wears the blockage down, allowing a mage to reach full potential. Forcing too much at once, however … Best case scenario, the mage simply passes out and wakes with an enormous headache. More than half the time, though, the tube is severed.”

“So the person would no longer be a mage?” she said.

He shook his head. “The tube—which all people, magic user or no, have—carries life force as well.”

One could die from trying to heal people? The risk would have been worth it to save Emry, but she hadn’t even tried. Tears leaked from her eyes again. “Please excuse me.”

She fled. Before she even realized where she was going, her fist rapped on a door, and seconds later, it swung inward to reveal Xan. Her tears flowed, and sobs escaped.

“Tasia! Why are you crying?”

Her tears choked away words. Long arms wrapped around her, and she buried her face in his chest.

Xan pulled her inside, and the door shut behind them. They stood like that for quite some time until her weeping faded, and he finally let go—reluctantly on his part? Or was that just in her imagination?

He stepped back. His face sported a nasty purple bruise and an egg-shaped lump over his right eye.

“What happened?” She pushed him to the bed to examine the injury.

“It’s nothing.”

Why was it men would rather die than admit weakness? She tilted his head to get a better look at his eyes. “Do you have a headache? Are you nauseous? Blurred vision? Dizziness?”

Xan spit out a sullen “no.”

“How did this happen?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She sighed and sat in the chair opposite him. “Please?”

His face reddened, and he turned away from her. “I decided to observe the actions of the enemy mages from as close as possible, so I went to the wall.”

She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. “Did a stone chip hit you? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I treated dozens of those wounds today.”

He set his jaw and muttered. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Tell me.”

He burst to his feet and faced away from her. “I fell, okay? I didn’t make it two steps up the ladder, much less to the parapet.”

A barked laugh escaped her, and she covered her mouth. He spun, his face a mask of pain.

“I’m so sorry. I’ve had the worst day …” Her voice choked.

Xan rushed to her and put his arms around her. “What is it?”

Frustration poured from her as she told him about Emry and her talk with Lucan.

“Teach me,” she said.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. The duke—”

“Have you been forbidden from teaching me?”

“No,” he said. “But—”

“Then you let me worry about breaking my uncle’s rules.”

He let out a long breath. “Close your eyes and clear your mind.”

She chuckled, and he stared at her with an annoyed expression.

“You sounded exactly like a hokey psychic at the spring carnival,” she said.

He walked her through a frustrating process of trying to find the magic source, but the reward was worth the effort. Sweet, invigorating power filled her. She stared at him and concentrated. His bruise faded, and after a few seconds, no trace remained.

Tasia wanted to run her fingers over the spot. Instead, she cleared her throat. “I should be going.” As she started to turn to leave, she rushed back to him and kissed him on the cheek.

He sat as stiff as a wood carving. She shouldn’t have done that. He was engaged. To her cousin.

Awkwardness stretched between them. She had to say something. “You have no idea how much your teaching means to me. Thank you.”

She dashed out the door.

In the corridor well away from his room, she stopped to gather herself. Her face warmed thinking back to the feel of Xan’s touch and her lips on his skin.

She really shouldn’t have done that. But it’d be fine. As long as Ashley didn’t find out, everything would be fine.