Battle Mage: Forging New Steel (Tales of Alus Book 9) (18 page)

“Vortex,” Sebastian countered with a tightly twisting swirl of air directed towards Jeriah. It threw back the wave of wind cast by the other mage and knocked him off his feet even as he tried to call up another mage shield.

Quickly getting to his feet, Jeriah looked ready to continue the fight that was growing one sided. In a battle one on one, Sebastian thought the other man might have a chance, but he didn’t know enough of the new magic to compete in a wizard like duel.

“Ok, this is getting old. Sleep arrows,” Sebastian complained as he called on another spell few knew.

A trio of glowing arrows launched towards the mage who called up a shield trying to block them. Sebastian redirected the outer two arrows as the center one struck the shield. Veering around the blue shield, Jeriah’s speed was enough to swat another, but the third struck clean seeming to explode in a small cloud of dust.

Jeriah stood for a moment and sneezed before his eyes rolled back in his head. Knees gave way next and the big man dropped to the ground in a heap.

As his friend moved to the fallen mage calling his name, Sebastian looked to all those eyes appearing stunned by his demonstration and said, “Learn the night and light spells and master them. The emperor’s warlocks and wizard hunters won’t just put you to sleep if they catch you unprepared.”

He stepped away towards Mecklin to retrieve his sword and the older mage shook his head. “You made him look stupid and weak. Jeriah is a pretty good battle mage.”

“I assume everyone here is good. Without knowledge of the new spells, they might as well be cadets waiting to get picked apart,” the owl replied as he strapped the sword to his hip. “You know as well as I do that the emperor’s wizard hunters are much tougher than the average orc. A short battle might go to someone using reflex, but it wears off. An orc in that special armor might beat a battle mage without using anything other than his blade.”

The other man sighed. “You’re probably right. We’ve tried to instill the need to learn. Everyone’s eager if only because they want to learn new magic, but seeing how easily you beat him might get it through their heads.

“By the way, weren’t those new spells you slipped in there?”

He nodded. “New words for the wind spell and I was feeling unusually energetic so I tried the barrage of more fireballs.”

Mecklin glanced to Ashleen curiously and the question on his mind was quickly answered by Bas, “Nothing like that. I did manage a stronger spell than I thought I could yesterday to heal her though. I drew the power and feel of the earth up through five floors of inn to energize her aura. She wasn’t recuperating from our time at the forge yesterday, so I helped her with a spell.

“I’ve had Ashleen and other wizards check me to see if I was getting stronger in some way, but no one seems to see more energy. Something is changing though, I can feel it now.”

His friend’s brow furrowed in worry and confusion. “You’ve been using power beyond what you should since the tournament and even before that, I think. Why is this suddenly concerning you?”

Sebastian considered telling his friend of the trick to pull power from the earth using a staff. Using the earth to drive his most powerful spells in the tournament, the mage had held his own against more powerful wizards. It had been a chess match though as he needed to finish his opponents quickly or burn out. According to Darius, the power of the earth could easily have killed him; but he survived if only barely and because of Yara and Darius’s treatments.

Frowning, he shrugged, “Never mind, but it just feels wrong to me. Hopefully I can figure it out later.”

“Don’t let it go into a bad place, Bas. Go to the wizards if you must. We’re in Hala, a haven for the best healer wizards on the continent; if they can’t help you, who can?”

He nodded and walked over to join Ashleen a moment. The girl noticed his face and asked in concern, “Is something wrong? You looked pretty good there, very powerful.”

“Almost too powerful,” the mage responded with worry.

Ashleen’s eyes glowed noticeably when close to him and the wizard looked through him to his aura and said, “Maybe there is a little more power there than before, but...” Her eyes looked confused and she asked, “Do you feel drained of energy from the fight? You did use a couple strong spells to convince him that he was overmatched.”

Strangely Sebastian noted that he wasn’t hungry this time. The two larger spells were on the verge of wizard levels, but his magic felt topped off and ready to go. “I’m fine actually.”

“May I?” she asked moving to place her hand on his chest.

“Now you ask?” he chuckled.

Giggling briefly, the girl began to mumble a spell that sounded very familiar. It was the words to the spell she had been using to examine the metal and impurities within the steel of the swords.

After a few minutes, her blue eyes opened and Ashleen looked a bit confused. “I don’t even know why I tried that spell, but I swear that your aura almost feels like the steel, like it is folded in on itself and layered now.”

The comparison to the metal of a blade made Sebastian consider her words closely. Had the repeated uses of the staff or something else managed to beat him like some raw piece of metal until his magic aura had become something akin to steel? It would perhaps make sense if he was growing more powerful without appearing to be any stronger. If the aura had become wrapped and folded into multiple layers creating a bigger reservoir or in someway made him stronger, then it might not be noticeable by another wizard or mage.

“I wonder if Master Darius has run across such a thing in his seven centuries?”

Ashleen shrugged and looked past him to the waiting mages. “You have a class to teach, if you’re up to it.”

He nodded and kissed her on the forehead in thanks.

Turning to face his students, Sebastian noticed the quiet readiness on their faces this time. He had proved why he was their teacher and they were awaiting his knowledge. The question for him was this new revelation something he could build in others and was it even safe to try?

Chapter 10- Power of the Earth

After the demonstration with Jeriah, an unplanned way to grab his students’ attention, Sebastian divided up the twenty three students while waiting for the sleeping mage to wake up from the sleep spell. Ashleen watched as well becoming an unofficial twenty fifth student, he supposed.

“How did you call so much fire?” one of his students, a dark haired woman with intense green eyes asked of him before they had barely separated from the rest.

“Yeah, that was pretty amazing,” another mage said in agreement as the others nodded. His blue eyes looked almost fanatical as the slightly shorter mage looked up at him expectantly.

Unsure of what to say, Sebastian answered as best he could, “I’ve been through so many battles of late going back to the Winter’s Edge tournament, that I may be getting better at calling on my magic. If Jeriah had mastered the night shield, however, that attack wouldn’t have been a problem for him.

“Did any of you get to see the Gray Hall wizards fight?”

A few nodded and he explained, “There were wizards calling tornadoes and walls of fire, but these black shields of night absorb most of the elements. Only physical attacks caused by an element are likely to work against them. Throw fire, water, lightning, ice and wind against it, they will get absorbed and reinforce the strength of your shield. Only the light spell is efficient against destroying the night.”

The first woman sighed and replied, “I think we all understand that but how did you figure out both spells during the tournament? That light spell was used the first time you revealed the night shield and you figured out that as well before the match was over. You beat him with his own magic.”

“Well,” he gestured for her to give her name, “Lysbeth, like all the wizard spells I’ve learned, some are easier to figure out than others. I scouted a few of the Gray Hall matches and watched Geriman fighting off a fire wizard and dragon wizard with them. By the time I faced Szurken, I had figured out that the spell was the opposite of the elements. It took life into it and absorbed it.

“The light spell, though it was brought out in response to my using the night shield, is enough like other spells that it was no problem to create.”

“Aside from fire, which doesn’t work, what spells do we have that are similar?” Lysbeth asked unwilling to let the matter go.

The new teacher wasn’t sure if he could describe the first time he had used a light spell. It had happened while disembodied and wind riding on an air wizards’ scouting spell. Instead he held up his hand calling up the controlled flow of lightning that Ashleen had helped him learn when they first met. “Dance,” the word brought tendrils of lightning dancing above the palm of his hand that flowed back to his fingers and thumb in arcs.

A training dummy made of canvas wrapped sticks and straw was about twenty feet from them. Sebastian turned his hand toward the target releasing the flow of lightning as he increased the force letting the individual strands of lightning begin to swirl and strengthen. Without a word uttered, the mage made the lightning swirl faster than the vortex of air used earlier. The light from the spell caused those watching to squint or look away from the brilliant flow of lightning.

Releasing the torrent with the close of his hand, Sebastian looked at the burning target with a hole bored clean through the heart. To his chagrin, he noticed blackened stone on the wall behind the dummy. “Calling just light makes less of a mess and requires less concentration, but this can also destroy night shields and break the black armor of the emperor’s Wizard Hunters as well.”

“Wizard Hunters?” the young mage known as Crispin asked in confusion.

Sebastian noted that they all appeared in the dark about the emperor’s newest weapons, the warlocks and soldiers that wore black armor to absorb the elements. Whether it was supposed to be a secret or not, the mage felt they needed to know what they might face in the field fighting the dark armies of the emperor.

“We’ve run into new troops wearing armor treated to absorb elemental magic like a night shield. Whether it is worn by orcs and goblins unable to use magic or one of their warlocks, the armor works pretty well to disrupt our magical attacks. Powerful lightning like that of Ashleen,” he gestured to the wilder, who waved from her seat, “or the light spells can break the armor, but the last group of orcs I ran into with the armor seemed to have improved their gear already. It took several light spells to destroy the armor and merely cracked it will continue to protect them from elemental magic.”

Noticing the concern on the faces of these veteran mages, Sebastian knew that the best thing for them was to train to learn what they needed to know to protect them. “Alright, let’s get to work.”

Calling out the night shield spell five times Sebastian projected three at ground level and two in the air bringing jaws dropping from the act. He had forgotten that most battle mages only held their shields on their arms or at the tips of their fingers. After battling wizards in the tournament and finding uses for the magic battling the black ships of the emperor, it had become common place to him and he realized how much he had already changed in just over a year.

“Alright, let’s see you try the light spells,” he declared walking free of his shields and directing Lysbeth by the shoulder to face one of the shields square.

Ashleen looked inspired and walked over to Mecklin and Frell individually before the young woman followed Sebastian’s lead and created night shields for each group to work with so the other two mages could work unfettered by the spells. She found another seat across from the battle mages who looked at the hovering targets held effortlessly by the wizard and Sebastian.

They were veterans and old enough for even the most shocking things to wear off quickly, however, and soon they were all working on their light spells. When one would succeed, Sebastian or Ashleen would replace the shields letting the battle mages continue their practice.

He was rather satisfied to see that most of them were calling light up easily by the end of the morning.

By the end of the session, most of the mages needed to go to a refreshments table for food as well as drink. Sebastian was there drinking a cup of juice enjoying the sugars and liquid refreshment when a shadow darkened his view. Jeriah and the friend who had tended him, Yoran, stood before him. The larger man still frowned at him and Sebastian thought maybe there would be another problem between them. Jeriah had woken and joined Frell’s group quietly enough, but Sebastian waited to see what the man wanted.

Rubbing his neck, Jeriah suddenly appeared unsure of what to say, but finally he adopted his frown again and blurted, “OK, how are you and that wizard projecting so many shield at once; and they are nowhere near you?”

“Were you here to see the wizards’ duels?” Sebastian asked calmly as he held his cup before him. The man looked ornery, but his question proved that he had at least come to respect his magical ability, if nothing else.

Jeriah nodded.

“Wizards are pretty much rubbish in a close fight.”

Ashleen complained, “Hey!”

He knew she was just joking, but Sebastian still smiled at the girl and said, “I can give you a shield and sword and we both know that you would try to use your lightning. It’s your better skill, that’s all.”