Master Mage (17 page)

As the darkness cleared, Thad found
himself once again in the queen’s bedchambers. She had taken a
liking to bringing him to her own quarters. As the days passed, she
became less and less covert about her desires. Thad didn’t know if
it was because death seemed to loom over him or because she had
finally reached her limit, but he wished she would stop. He cared
for Maria, but his heart was still raw and still grieved for the
loss of Brianna.

“How are you?” Maria’s voice asked from
behind Thad.

“We are hard-pressed, and I believe the
fort will fall within a few days. We cannot last without
reinforcements,” Thad replied without turning around.

“I don’t think I asked how the army was
doing but how you were,” Maria said, turning Thad around, forcing
him to face her. She wore a light green silk dress that made her
flaming red hair stick out more than usual.

“At the moment, me and the army might
as well be the same thing, my queen,” Thad answered, turning his
face from hers.

Thad felt the hard slap across his
face. “Stop. Don’t treat me as some lofty queen that you serve only
out of fealty. You are my friend first and foremost, Thaddeus
Torin.”

Thad reached up and rubbed his stinging
cheek. “Can we wait to do this until after the war?” Thad asked,
his anger starting to rise.

“You think I should wait until I
receive news that your body lies cold upon the battlefield!” Maria
screamed. “I have waited long enough. I will not waste what little
time I know to be left.”

“Don’t put me in the ground yet,” Thad
replied, pulling away from her. “I have survived against all odds
before, and I shall do so again.”

Thad felt tiny hands grip his tunic and
pull him to his knees so he was forced to look the young queen in
the eyes. “I love you,” Maria said, tears streaming down her
face.

“I am not ready to give my heart to you
yet,” Thad pleaded.

“I know you still mourn her death. I
have waited, but I fear time for such things has passed. Please do
not make me stand before your grave alone, never knowing how you
truly felt.”

Thad leaned over and gave Maria a
slight peck, his lips only briefly touching the queen’s. “I do love
you, but I still need time.”

Thad glimpsed a small smile spread on
Maria face as the darkness folded in around him. Thad didn’t try to
fight as he was pulled away, gracious that the dream had finally
come to an end. Before he woke, Thad once again thought of Brianna
and apologized for his weakness. No matter how hard he tried, the
little queen had burrowed into his thoughts, and he could no longer
deny his feelings toward her.

As soon as he woke, Thad made his way
straight toward General Bache’s cabin. Thad found the general in
his office, looking as if he had not slept in days. “Master Thad,
to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“We need to start planning to abandon
Digger’s Fort,” Thad stated plainly.

“I don’t think it has come to that just
yet. We can hold out for a few more—”

“If we wait much longer, then there
will be no time to escape when we need to,” Thad said, cutting off
the general’s words. “We need to start pulling back troops and
rigging the tunnels to be collapsed when the last of our men reach
safety.”

“I will start moving out the
nonessentials from the fort. The bowmen and a large contingent of
soldiers will have to remain to keep the Rane forces believing that
we are still within the walls. As for the rest, I have no idea how
to close the tunnels once we pass through them.”

“Leave the tunnels to me,” Thad
replied. “I have an idea of how to make sure no one can follow us
after we decide to close them.”

“If that is all, I have much to do,
Master Thad,” Bache said, dismissing Thad.

As Thad turned back toward the door, he
heard a loud horn sound in the distance, signaling that the Rane
army was positioning for another attack. Forgetting decorum, Thad
rushed out the door and moved as quickly as possible toward the
eastern wall.

As he reached the nearest tower, Thad
called on his magic, lifting himself into the air and onto the
upper platform.

Looking out across the field, Thad saw
more than five thousand men marching toward them. First, the siege
weapons started their rain of rocks, forcing Thad and the other
mages to expend their magical energy to push them aside. Three
volleys of rocks rained down on them before the sky was filled with
arrows from both sides.

Thad tried to block the arrows as best
he could, but they had come too quickly, and more than a score of
soldiers fell from their sting. Behind him, the Farlan catapult
answered back, flinging dozens of fiery magical orbs at the enemy.
Great gusts of fire rose up from a dozen different places, and
anyone near was engulfed, their lifeless bodies falling to the
ground, charred black.

Through the fiery rain of death, the
Rane army pushed forward until they reached the pike-filled
trenches. As they slowed down, the Farlan archers picked them off
by the score, but still, they came. Thad pulled out his last
enchanted brass orb and released it. A loud burst of magical energy
exploded from the ground only a few yards away from the fort’s
walls, sending men high into the air, a few even falling down into
the inner walls of the fort.

Turning away from the carnage, Thad
fought back the urge to purge his stomach of his latest meal. No
matter how many times he had seen it, watching such death turned
his stomach even more so when it was wrought by his
hand.

Looking back at the carnage, Thad
noticed that the Rane forces had once again begun to pull back.
Heaving a sigh of relief, Thad looked around at the many bodies
that lay dead or dying on their side of the wall. Each attack left
more and more dead with no one to take their place. At one time,
they had a combined force of over four thousand. Now that number
had dwindled to less than three.

His powers exhausted, Thad was forced
to climb down the ladder. Halfway down to the ground, Thad’s hand
touched something wet, and he lost his grip. Thad hit the ground
hard, knocking the air from the chest. Sitting up, Thad looked at
his hand as if it had betrayed him when he noticed that it was
covered in blood. Quickly checking himself and finding no wound, he
looked around. It didn’t take long for Thad to notice that the
crimson liquid dripped from the second platform of the
tower.

“Are you OK, Thaddeus?” Thad heard
Killian say from behind him.

“Just took a bit of a fall,” Thad
replied, getting to his feet.

“You look like you haven’t had a good
sleep in days,” Killian said, offering his arm to help steady the
mage. “Won’t do anyone any good if you drop dead from
exhaustion.”

“It’s not like the enemy is giving many
opportunities to rest,” Thad replied, taking the warmaster’s
offered arm. “I have also been working on anther plan along with
Roger and Marcus for when we have to leave the fort behind,” Thad
added in a way of explanation for his haggard look.

“I am not as kind as your other
friends. If I think your lack of sleep may jeopardize the war, I
will make you sleep, even if I have to give you a couple of lumps
on the head. So if you don’t fancy a headache, you better find your
way to a bed,” Killian said without a hint of sarcasm.

I don’t think he’s joking.
You really should get some sleep. It’s easy for me to tell how
gaunt your mind is.

“I don’t want to, but it seems I am
left with little choice in the matter,” Thad said out loud, hoping
to quell both Killian’s and Thuraman’s objections. He might have
not liked it, but even he had to agree that he had once again
pushed himself too far. He had promised himself not to do that
anymore, but he always found a reason.

There is always going to be
a reason if you look hard enough for it. Soldiers die. It’s part of
their job. Stop trying to save every life and start worrying about
your own for once.

“That is how evil men act,” Thad
replied to his staff.

Then be an evil man if
that’s what it takes. Believe it or not, there are people that need
you, and I am one of them. What am I supposed to do if you die?
Wait around for a few hundred years until someone comes along that
I can form a link with?

“I will not sacrifice other people just
so you have someone to talk to,” Thad replied angrily, forcing the
connection between the two to the far edges of his mind. He could
still hear a faint murmuring of Thuraman’s objections but paid them
little heed.

As soon as Thad entered his tent, he
went straight to his bedroll. He had only woken a few hours prior,
but he had only been sleeping for short spans at a time. What he
needed was a good long rest, but he doubted the Rane army would
afford him that luxury.

Much to Thad’s surprise, when Thad
woke, he found early morning light streaming into his tent. He had
slept for far longer than he had thought possible and for far
longer than he had wanted. Scrambling to his feet, Thad darted out
of his tent.

As soon as he was outside, Thad noticed
that the soldiers were moving more bodies away from the wall and
piling them on a new pyre to be burned.

“What has happened?” Thad asked,
grabbing the first soldier he came across.

“The Rane forces did a number on us, my
lord. We were able to push them off, but half the eastern wall is
nothing but splinters and kindling.”

“Thank you,” Thad replied, letting go
of the man’s arm and rushing off toward the eastern
wall.

As he neared the wall, it was easy to
tell what the soldier had been talking about. Almost the entire
wall had been torn apart from bombardment with only small sections
left standing.

Seeing a number of soldiers moving
timber in an attempt to repair the worst of the damage, Thad rushed
over to help. As more soldiers arrived to help reinforce the wall,
Thad moved back, deciding he had more important things to attend
to.

Thad found Killian outside his tent,
cleaning the blood from his armor. “Killian, has Bache started
evacuating yet?” Thad asked as soon as he neared the old
warmaster.

“Yes, late last night, he started
getting all the civilians out through the tunnels. It’s a slow
process, and we will need to hold the fort for another day at least
before the last of us may leave,” Killian replied, wringing the
blood from the rag he held in his hands. “I would suggest you be
among the first to leave, but I doubt you would heed
me.”

“I cannot in good conscience leave
while others still fight,” Thad said, his voice full of
steel.

Killian dropped the rag and gave Thad a
stern look. “I can appreciate the feeling behind your resolve, but
it is misplaced. I will not argue with you staying for a time, but
when I say it is time for you to leave, I don’t want to hear
different from your mouth.”

“Why does it matter if I live or die?”
Thad asked with fire in his voice.

Killian stood up and quickly covered
the ground between him and Thad. The old warrior grabbed the
younger man and yanked him close, nearly picking him off the
ground. “Your queen gave us the mission to try and win a war, not
just fight a battle. From what I have heard, all our reinforcements
have come at your call, and I will not risk them turning around and
leaving if you are not there to greet them. Now stop with your
self-sacrificing death wish and start thinking about what will
happen after you’re gone.”

“Yes, sir” were the only words that
Thad could force from his throat. He had spent many hours with the
old warmaster, but he had never seen the man so adamant before and
hoped to never see it again.

As soon as Killian loosened his grip,
Thad quickly made his way to where Roger and Marcus worked. The two
men along with a handful of mages had taken over a small corner of
one of the barracks, replacing the cots with makeshift
tables.

“How many more have you been able to
finish?” Thad asked as soon as he was through the door.

“Two dozen, but we’re running out of
glass. If we don’t get more supplies, we will be finished within
the hour,” Marcus said, waving his hand lazily at the small row of
glass orbs lining the wall.

“I don’t think we have time to worry
about making more at the moment. The wall is falling, and I doubt
we will be able to hold them at bay for much longer,” Thad said,
gathering up the finished orbs. “You and Roger need to take the
western tunnels to the Emeriss estate.”

“That bad, is it?” Marcus said, giving
Thad a withered glare.

“I’m afraid so,” Thad
replied.

Giving Thad one final look, the older
mage set down the orb he was working on and started gathering his
belongings. The elder mage stopped after a few moments and looked
to his younger apprentice, who was still hard at work. “Did you
hear him, fool?” Marcus said, slapping Roger on the back of the
head. “It’s time for us to go.”

“I just thought … ,” Roger began to say
before Marcus gave him a scathing glare, cutting off any further
arguments.