Rising of a Mage: Book 03 - A Mage Risen (20 page)

Fredin stood next to Vingaza
, watching as the first orcs began falling over the edge of the stairs. “Wait. I want to make sure they don’t have another trap set up.”

After a few minutes Fredin was satisfied. At least two hundred orcs had died in that time. He nodded to his new advisor. Gescheit blew the horn. Vingaza watched as the just under fifty wizards
, and all the under wizards they had brought with them, fired whatever magic they were capable of firing at the distance. It wasn’t nearly as far as the three-mile winding staircase, but it was still a mile and a half to two miles as the crow flies. That was a great distance for a wizard to push his magic. Many of the wizards had made their way right up to the base of the mountain to fire what they could. Most of them shot small balls of fire. Many of the less capable wizards who had been brought along as aides were quickly finding out they didn’t have the ability to make that distance.

Jabaal stood watching as crossbow bolts rained down on the orcs. The dwarves were firing and reloading faster then the orcs could clear away the dead. Then he saw dozens of balls of fire flying at the landing. He dove to the side
, tackling Grizzle. The two of them fell to the ground, knocking the king down with them. The landing turned into chaos. Fire burst on the wall. Some fire balls smashed into the mountain above the landing, raining rocks down on the dwarves. Evermount didn’t let go of its stone easily, though. The balls of fire the wizards were able to throw that distance weren’t strong enough to do much damage, so the rocks that fell didn’t do much more than bounce off of armor or leave minor cuts and bruises. The dwarves were jumping back up to resume firing.

When Grizzle got back to his feet he saw that the delay had given the orcs a chance to clear away the bodies
, and they were now charging up the last hundred feet. Dwarves were starting to shoot again, but enough were still down or had been wounded that the orcs were going to make the landing before they recovered their defenses. He threw Gorgon’s hammer, the hammer that Gorgon had made and Bordin had blessed when Gorgon had sacrificed himself in the battle against Miskrull. The hammer was a heavy, square thing that narrowed near the handle and rounded on the ends. It flew down the steps, smashing orc after orc, knocking them down as if they were nothing more then bottles on a wall. Some were knocked backwards, some took glancing blows that sent them spinning off the wall, but the hammer was not slowed. It flew down the steps five hundred feet until they started to curve. Grizzle called the hammer back. Just as the hammer returned to him he had to dive back to the ground as another volley of fire assaulted the landing. This one lasted longer than the last. Every time a dwarf stuck his head up there was more fire coming. They were peeking up just long enough to let bolts go then were diving down again. The orcs were making progress, though.

Grizzle called down into the tunnel. “Roll
away. Roll away! Now!”

Vingaza watched as the first volley of fire ended. The
orcs had nearly made it up before one of the dwarves had thrown some kind of magical weapon that had cleared five hundred feet of stairs. With the orcs all lined up like they were on the stairs, that throw had cleared away close to a thousand of them.

Vingaza let the wizards fire
their next volley. They weren’t strong enough to maintain a constant attack. Each wizard fired one ball of fire then needed a few minutes before he could fire the next. Vingaza waited until the last of the balls of fire was on its way before sending his own volley.

Fredin watched the second round of fireballs go flying through the air. He knew that it was only enough to get the orcs back up to that set of stairs leading to the landing. It wasn’t going to be enough to get them onto the landing. Then Vingaza let his first round of fire go. A dozen balls of fire followed the other wizards
’ up the mountain. Then he sent another dozen. Vingaza had sent at least as much magic up the mountain as all the other wizards combined. Fredin realized for the first time how powerful he really was.

Grizzle stayed low as volley another volley slammed into the mountain. The dwarves were still firing down at the orcs, but avoiding the fire and the rocks wasn’t easy. It wouldn’t be but another minute before the first orc made the landing. The wizards would have to stop their attack then. He heard the dwarves in the tunnel calling as they made the entrance of the cave. This group of orcs wouldn’t make the landing. He heard the
dwarf’s commands. “Push! Let’s go! What are we, dwarves or kobolds? Push! Push! Push!” Then the first eight-foot-tall boulder rolled out onto the landing. The dwarves had been chiseling these over the last couple days, getting them as round and smooth as they could so they would roll straight. He heard the final command.

“Heave away!”

The boulder rolled over the landing and started down the stairs.

Fredin watched as the orcs made their way up the fatal funnel. Thousands of orcs had died there. Now, while the wizards suppressed the dwarves with the bombardment of balls of fire
, the orcs were finally about to make the landing. Once they did that, the dwarves would be lost. There were just too many orcs for them to win once they made it into the mountain. But just when he thought the tide had turned, a huge boulder rolled out of the mouth of the cave. Fredin watched as another thousand orcs were lost in seconds. On those five hundred feet of stairs more orcs had died in the last couple of hours than anywhere else in the world. Of that Fredin was certain.

“Vingaza
, is there anything you can do about the rocks?”

Vingaza had watched. He could replicate the whole thing they had just done, but after two volleys he needed a few minutes to recover. He called to one of the Ambar wizards. “Darren
, come here.” Darren was one of the most powerful wizards who had come with them. That meant he was about a tenth as capable as Vingaza, but he would be able to handle this.

“Yes
, Vingaza,” Darren said as he approached.

“Don’t fire on the next volley. I want you ready with whatever you can make that will stop one of those boulders. All you need is something strong enough to change its direction
—enough to roll it off the landing. It will take about half a minute to get the boulder from the entrance to the landing, so you have that much time. Can you do that?”

Darren at least had the sense to think before claiming he could. “Yes, I can do it.”

The orcs were heading back up the stairs. When the dwarves started firing again the wizards started their volley of magic. It was predictable. They did the same thing three times in a row now. The dwarves really had no defense against the magic, though, so there wasn’t much they could do but wait it out. But the orcs needed to make that landing soon. Fredin didn’t know much about magic, but even he knew that the wizards would not be able to keep this up forever.

Jabaal watched as the next column of orcs started up that last set of stairs. The dwarves knew what to expect now. They got better at returning fire each time, but it still wasn’t enough with
the amount of magic that was being sent against the landing. When the dwarves started firing down onto the orcs, the balls of fire started flying through the air towards them; they had only a few seconds, and they all were aware of it now. The dwarves fired as fast as they could. The orcs coming up the stairs now had no shields. They were relying solely on the wizards to get them up the stairs. The dwarves would shoot down a hundred orcs before the magic came, then Grizzle would call out “Down!”

Jabaal got down below the wall. Rock fell down on them. The dwarves started peeking and firing. Jabaal was waiting for the call. Grizzle gave it. “Roll
away! Roll! Roll away!”

The dwarves continued to fire over the wall in between balls of fire smashing into
the wall and over their heads. Each volley had taken the life of at least two dwarves who had tried to continue shooting or peeked over the wall at just the wrong time. Jabaal heard the call as the boulder came up out of the tunnel. This one was bigger than the last. It was at least nine feet wide—nearly as wide as the stone entrance to Evermount.

“Push! Push! Push!
”

You could only get so many dwarves behind the rock to push it.
The dwarves must have been struggling more with this one, because the dwarf who was calling out the command wasn’t shouting insults this time. The rock rolled onto the landing just as the orcs had nearly gained it. The dwarves on the wall were firing along to hit the orcs at the top of the stairs. The third volley of the wizards had just finished. The dwarves were all standing and firing.

“Roll
away!” The command came and the final push sent the stone rolling onto the stairs.

Vingaza watched as his last volley went flying up the mountain. Darren had been watching him. When he fired the last of the magic he looked at Darren and nodded. He watched as Darren lifted off the ground and went soaring through the air behind the last volley of fire.

Jabaal looked over the wall after the third volley of fire slammed into the mountain. When he did he saw a man in Black Dragon robes flying toward the landing. The man pointed his hands at the boulder rolling onto the stairs. The gust of wind that came from his hands threw half a dozen dwarves off the landing. It threw even more orcs off the steps, but it had given them the reprieve they would need to make the landing.

The wizard apparently wasn’t strong enough to fly back down the mountain because he dropped on the landing. Two crossbow bolts took him in the chest before his feet ever met stone. A third
lodged in his neck just after he landed. The wizard fell to the ground, choking and gasping for breath as blood filled his throat and lungs.

“Fall back! Fall back now
!” Grizzle commanded. The boulder had been diverted. The orcs were rushing onto the landing. They couldn’t be allowed to gain a foothold in Evermount. As the other dwarves fired their last bolts, Grizzle and Grindel moved to block the top of the stairs.

Jabaal took two running steps to the wall. He jumped up on top of it. He leapt from the wall yelling
“Kalime Aquida!” as he fell into the midst of the orcs on the stairs.

Vingaza watched as his last volley of fire bombarded the landing. From this distance he could just see the boulder rolling out onto the landing.
He watched Darren fly up toward the landing and saw the bodies going over the wall. Orcs were flying off the steps. Seconds later the boulder went rolling wide off the steps. Darren had been successful, but he had surely been killed. The fool hadn’t thought about how he was going to get back after expending that much energy, or he had thought he would travel back, but the magic of this place prevented that. He looked to the orc, who was watching in amazement as the tide finally turned.

“That was his special skill. Most wizards have something that they are very good at. Darren had somehow learned how to fly. I have never seen anyone who could come close to his ability.”

Fredin watched as the boulder went wide. The orcs were nearly to the landing. They were going to make it this time. They were too close. Any trap the dwarves set now would kill them, too. Then a blinding, blue light flashed in front of the landing. The light crashed down onto the stairs. Fredin looked to Vingaza. “Do they have a wizard?”

Vingaza continued looking up at the blue light moving up the stairs. “No
, that is a paladin of Kalime. A very powerful one, to be so brilliant that we can see his faith from here.”

Jabaal drew both of his swords as he came down. He kicked one
orc over the edge of the stairs as he landed. His left hand went up the stairs as his right went down. The blade in his left hand drove into the back and out the chest of the orc on the stairs above him. His right-hand blade cut through the neck of one orc and down through the shoulder and into the chest of a second. He spun in a circle, freeing his swords as he moved up the steps. He had leapt about thirty feet down the steps, and there were still roughly fifty feet between him and the landing. The orcs in front of him were making their way up the steps. He brought his left hand across the backs of the knees of the two orcs above him. As they fell, the sword in his right hand came down into each of their chests. He didn’t even slow down. He had to move faster then the orcs coming up behind him. Before those two orcs were ever down he was moving past them. Both his blades shot forward in a blur of blue light, driving through the backs of two more orcs and out their stomachs. The wounds would be painful but would not kill them instantly. He wanted orcs flailing around on the steps, slowing down the ones behind them. Jabaal launched himself off of the shoulder of an orc in front of him who had fallen to his knees. He landed with one foot on the shoulder of each of the orcs in front of him. His feet had barely made contact before he was running forwar,d his feet finding head and shoulders of the orcs as his blades came down, digging into the necks, shoulders, and chest before he was moving on to the next ones. He was about ten steps from the landing when the ones in front of them knocked out the orcs below him from under him. He lost his balance. He was falling toward the steps. He spun into a flip. He landed in a crouch with one knee and one foot on the steps. Grizzle was on the steps below him.