The Unexpected Heir: A Tale of Alus (66 page)

Lancing out from her hand, the darkness struck the shield weakening it quickly. The vortex of stone hammered at the shield until it shattered. Anna saw the man's mouth open to scream, but the battlefield drowned him out.

No battle could be waged indefinitely. Men fatigued and wizards ran out of energy. It wasn't long before the enemy had to pull back. Three more times they would push at Malaiy's army and three more times they failed.

The following morning Annalicia returned before dawn after sleeping in the castle. Few of their people could afford to leave the battlefield and the girl wished that she could offer them more; but sleeping in a comfortable bed meant she returned more refreshed. Hopefully the enemy would spend their night on the hard ground and return with less energy. Any little edge would help.

As she waited for the next attack, the girl scanned the distant hills and the army camped at their base. There had been no wizard attacking with the strength that she had heard of in Tseult. Had he come or remained behind? If they had such a weapon, Annalicia would have thought that they would bring him; unless they believed that they could be victorious without this remarkable wizard.

The third day went much the same as the second. Having tested each other, the enemy continued to throw themselves at Malaiy looking for a weak spot. They could take a few feet here or there, but nothing gave them momentum. While during the night, Malaiy wizards used their magic to rebuild what they could of their earthen defenses.

Men still were wounded and some died with each attempt, but the fatalities were insignificant for the numbers in each army. Annalicia did her best to remain analytical about the war. Deaths were numbers to her for now. If she let herself think about the individual deaths, the girl knew that she would curl up and cry becoming useless.

Day four came and it was the bloodiest yet. Even with her aid, the men in front of her were thrown aside by magic. Soldiers stormed in, and the sight of girl failed to instill fear in them until a storm of wind and earth threw the men back.

Two wizards used their magic to cut through the windstorm to face the woman. They sensed that she was a strong point in the defense and sought to shut her down permanently.

Annalicia picked up a spear from one of the fallen men. She didn't think that it would protect her. Certainly the girl had never trained in the weapon's use. No, Annalicia planted the spear on the ground and did what she knew Sebastian had done.

Pulling power through the spear from the ground, Anna felt the rush of power so great that she could barely hold on as she channeled the energy into her wind spell. Feeding it with the power borrowed from Alus, the two wizards stopped their advance and were even driven back in spite of their best attempts. In a war of wills, they might have won; but against the power of the earth, the two men were nothing.

Annalicia watched the wizards retreat into a crowd of soldiers stalled by her wind storm and released the flow of power from the earth. She felt small all of a sudden. It was like looking into the power of a lighthouse light in the evening. When it turned away, everything darkened.

Along her part of the battlefield, the enemy had given up and pulled back. They looked uncertain of what to do. The wizards had failed in the face of one little girl. Doubt had crept in, but they weren't beaten yet.

Annalicia reached forward with both hands as if she was plunging her fingers into the wind spell. Throwing them wide, the storm split in two rushing down the line disrupting the enemy's attack. After the surprise, the enemy had to fall back or risk being overwhelmed before they could recover.

In the lull of the battle, the wizard looked at the spear that she had dropped on the ground to split her storm in two. Picking it up, Anna noted the wood looked burned. Blackened in places, there was even gray ash in the cracks. Having never tried using the trick before, it did explain why she had seen Sebastian use more than one staff at times. He also had a wizard's staff of iron and wood.

"What was that?" Reynolvan asked as the wizard walked up with Ivanor and Keith. They had felt the spike in magic power, but had been distracted enough to have missed how the girl had done it.

Darius had warned Sebastian about misusing the power drawn from the staff. She had overheard him when she wasn't supposed to. Her winds had helped her eavesdrop during the critical information. Wizards had aged themselves into old men from using the magic to kill and destroy. For regular men, it meant their bodies deteriorated at a catastrophic rate; but if she was immortal, her body could recover. Annalicia had yet to see Sebastian showing signs of aging, though he had come close to dying when he had become drained after a duel. She also didn't know what it took to harm a wizard in that way.

Looking at the men so curious about the show of power, Anna wondered what they would do if she showed them the trick. A simple staff could increase their power vastly; but if her grandfather was right, and he usually was, they would likely kill themselves soon if she told them the truth.

"I put a lot into that spell," the girl said managing to skirt the truth without lying. "I needed more power for the wind storm to take on two wizards at once."

Though the three wizards looked like they didn't fully believe that was the entirety of the truth, Keith scanned the path before them and stated, "Well, it looks like whatever you did stopped them. Another wave broken and we still hold the line."

The other men let up on the girl and agreed with their associate. Another day of fighting ended. The enemy pulled back to lick their wounds and reassess their tactics.

Caldrefan had felt the surge in magic on the field. His senses told him where the anomaly had been. He wondered if they had been hiding such a powerful wizard from him. If so, maybe the enemy had begun to get desperate.

It wasn't unheard of for a wizard to be able to hide his power. Drawing the strength of magic inward and creating a masking shell could make a powerful magic user look weak, if the one creating the illusion was talented. Caldrefan had used his skill at doing so for most of his life. He hid his power from other wizards, unless he found a kindred soul who might join him, or if the master needed to impress another caster.

"Master, that power, do they have a wizard as powerful as you?" the youngest of his elite wizards asked warily.

"The use of power was strong, but fleeting, Obek. They may have used a technique to wrench as much power as they could for one spell. I have seen a wizard used up after trying such a spell. It was so short that I would guess that they couldn't maintain it for long."

The five wizards around him appeared to believe his assessment for the most part. His optimistic belief could give them more strength and solidify their mental state better than letting them know that even he questioned what he had felt and seen.

He had also seen the soldiers nearest that power fall away from the wizard's spell. Two of his wizards had faced it and had retreated. Caldrefan would need to find those men and find out what they had seen. If the enemy had more wizards like this one, this could be trouble for his whole army.

Caldrefan rode down to his army's camp and tracked down the wizards who had faced such a powerful foe. When they told him that it was just a girl, the master barely contained his surprise. A petite blonde haired girl dressed in a light blue skirt and blouse had confronted them with the power of wind. She had purposely used the vortex over recently broken ground to use the earth and stone to make her winds even more dangerous.

The two wizards looked chagrined as they confessed to losing to a single wizard.

His force of wizards mainly consisted of men. Out of seventy-five magic users only five were women. There had been more left in the cities of Tseult. He didn't need women slowing him down, or so the immortal believed. His belief that men were superior wizards wasn't widely known, but Caldrefan had seen glaring deficiencies with their training. Physically their monthly period could throw their magic off and then there was the possibility of wasting his time on a woman who would become pregnant. A mother's priority was her child and made it hard for the immortal to believe that he should take a girl as an apprentice.

Now this girl had appeared and seemed as powerful as he was. It caused him anger to even consider that he might find an equal in a simple girl.

Surrounded by his elite wizards, Caldrefan joined the army in the morning as they approached the Malaiy defenses. His senses were enhanced by magic as he had prepared to look for the wizard and destroy her. He couldn't have her standing in his way anymore than the rest of the enemy army and wizards would.

The battle began. Swords rang against shields and armor. Men cried out or screamed. This attack had more weight behind it this time. They planned to drive their enemy back to the castle walls today. There would be no more testing of the enemy's strength and magic.

Once more his wizards caused damage to the walls and trenches. Like a recurring rash, the enemy continued to fix their defenses as best they could each night. Reports from the front line told of his soldiers' frustration. Men had died or been wounded taking the points each day only to see them remade during the night and they would have to do it all over again.

A satchel hung from his shoulder across to his left hip as he walked with the soldiers and other wizards towards the battle line. Supplies for during and after his use of magic were a necessity even for him. Trying to escape the battlefield during a fight would be nearly impossible for a starving wizard, so his people all carried similar equipment.

"We can deal with this upstart girl if you would rather, master," Hoskis stated as his elite student walked with him.

"It will give the men more courage to see me with them fighting. Besides, I wish to see this girl. Perhaps she is someone that I can use my magic against. Turning her power against her nation would be a benefit to us while weakening the enemy," the master wizard stated to his men.

Spying the first of the black shields being raised against them, Caldrefan drew up his magic to cast a beam of bright light to shatter each defense. Earth spells were sent into the enemy redoubt sending men running from the trenches as their thick walls were pushed into the holes where the enemy soldiers had hidden from the arrows of his army.

Both sides still did their best to whittle away at the front lines with arrows, but with Caldrefan and his wizards using their magic shields to keep them safe it was practically a waste of their time. The wizard spotted an enemy magic user and sent fire in a wave designed to kill the man as well as any soldiers caught in the way.

A quickly raised black shield caught the flames before it was destroyed, but the enemy still had to fall back. There were fewer casualties than he had hoped, but it looked like Caldrefan's team of wizards would be the tipping point for this battle.

Sighting a flash of blond hair nearby, the master continued to push at the line of soldiers and wizards. It was hard to be sure if this was the girl his men had spoken about, but most of the women on the field of battle wore helmets and armor. Malaiy and many of the countries in the northwest of Taltan had a surprisingly low amount of women wizards, someone among the communities of wizards had likely been researching why; but Caldrefan only cared that he could find this girl. If she was so powerful, he needed to find her and either take the wizard for his own or destroy her.

"Master, over there!" Obek cried out excitedly. Caldrefan watched the young wizard charge ahead towards something. "The girl!" he added as the wizard began another spell.

The earth shook throwing the Malaiy soldiers to the ground. Caldrefan spotted a girl dressed like she was out for a stroll on a sunny day. Wearing a light blue skirt ending in triangular layers and a sleeveless blouse, he could tell that the girl was beautiful even from a distance. Her blonde hair was light, nearing the platinum coloring some immortals were known to have.

Why he thought of the immortals when this was obviously a beautiful child, was at first a question in his mind. Power in magic didn't mean that a wizard was an immortal. In fact, only one wizard was widely known to be an immortal; but Caldrefan knew of two more. Still it was highly unlikely and no rumors of such a wizard had carried to him through his sources.

A name popped into his head. "Lady Annalicia, it must be her," he spoke over the noise of battle to Hoskis and a few other men near them.

"Malaiy has few women wizards and she is known to be powerful and talented. Would they risk her here?" Hoskis asked curiously.

"She hasn't been seen since leaving for the Southwall tournament. Apparently, the girl has surprised us by sneaking into Solan," the master said with a frown.

"None of their wizards could contend with your power, master. They sent some of their best to represent Malaiy, but surely you don't think one of them discovered a way to grow their magical strength since your spies watched them train?"

"With magic, everything is possible," he replied with a frown. It was a common saying among wizards, though few could truly say that everything had been possible for them. With enough willpower and knowledge, most things were possible; but growing one's strength significantly had never been one of those things.

He noted that the little wizard was walking around carrying a spear like a walking stick. His sources had never mentioned the girl being capable of using weapons beyond her magic and quickly dismissed the spear as what it appeared to be. It had most likely been scavenged for use as a walking stick as it looked in her hands. When a wizard was drained of their magic, like any man or woman a staff was nice to use to keep them on their feet.