Lusam: The Dragon Mage Wars Book Two (17 page)

The sun was now setting beyond the western mountains, and the shadows would help conceal their presence as they breached the top of the wall. Although Lusam could clearly see how high the wall was, he wasn't prepared for just how thick it was. When they reached the top of the wall they both instinctively fell to their stomachs and crawled the full width of the wall to peer over into the city below. The wall was easily four times thicker than Lusam was tall, his mind boggled at the thought of how thick the base must be, and how it had been constructed in the first place.

Looking down onto the streets below they could see many people moving to and fro, all oblivious to their presence so high up above them.

“We should wait a few minutes until it's fully dark,” Renn suggested. Lusam agreed, there was no point risking detection for the sake of a few extra minutes. Renn used the vantage point to show Lusam exactly where the Hawks' guild was located, and even from this distance Lusam could make out occasional movements on the rooftop of the building. No doubt from ground level they would have been all but invisible, but to Lusam's mage-sight they glowed brightly enough to see from his elevated position. He
scanned the city streets for any signs of Empire agents, but found none to his relief, and informed Renn of his discovery.
“How can you tell they aren't Empire agents from up here lad?” Renn asked sounding confused at Lusam's statement.

“I can see their auras, same as you can,” Lusam replied, equally confused at Renn's question.

“But from all the way up here how can you see what people are wearing, it's too dark to see their clothes clearly now. Surely all you can see are the auras of people as they move around the city, some brighter than others of course, but if you can't see their robes, how would you know if it was an Empire agent or not?”

“Because of their aura colour of course,” Lusam replied, beginning to tire of explaining the obvious.

“What do you mean `
aura colour?
`All auras are the same colour, blue. They're blue because we're all children of Aysha, and Aysha's light is contained within all of us, they can't be any other colour lad,” Renn said looking over at Lusam.

“Well that guy who tried to kill me in Helveel had a very bright scarlet coloured aura, not a blue one. I've seen one or two in Helveel in the past with the same colour aura, but not as bright as his was, and they were wearing normal clothes not black robes. I never really paid much attention to
the colour before that guy tried to kill me, I guess I just thought everyone was different that's all,”
Renn's mind reeled with the implications. For centuries the Empire had successfully hidden its spies amongst the citizens and elite of Afaraon, causing untold damage and hardships to its people. If Lusam was truly able to spot them simply by his ability to see their auras as a different colour, it would deal a staggering blow to the Empire's network of spies within Afaraon. Any spies sent to the Empire were often caught very quickly and executed before any useful information was obtained. It was far too easy for them to be detected as they didn't wear a working ring of the Empire, so the first time anyone challenged them they would be caught and killed. Lusam's ability would go a long way to readdressing the balance between Afaraon and the Empire of Thule.

“Lusam, if what you're saying is true, and you can indeed spot an Empire agent simply by the colour of their aura, well, the implications are staggering lad. You may well be the most powerful weapon we have against the Empire and its spies. You could simply walk into a room and instantly know who was a spy by the colour of their aura. We could feed misinformation where required, and remove others at will. The Empire wouldn't know what's hit them,” Renn said grinning from ear to ear.

Lusam had never even thought about such things
before, spies and Empire agents were never a factor in his life growing up, nor did he relish them being part of his life from now on, but he instinctively knew they would be.
For now he needed to focus on the job at hand, rescuing Neala, and escaping the city with all their lives intact. He also didn't really want to get involved in a discussion with Renn about it right now.

“Whatever you say, but it's dark enough now so I think we should make our move,” Lusam said. Renn nodded his agreement, and they both shuffled over to line themselves up with the open windows of the tower. Lusam quickly levitated them both across the gap and through the upper window, letting Renn take the lead. Once they entered the bell-tower they found themselves standing on a platform that circled the four windows, giving whoever may be up here a perfect view of the entire city and beyond. Looking over the edge of the platform Lusam could see the giant bell hanging just below them, and the thick ropes connected to them that disappeared far below. An old rickety wooden ladder linked the next floor down, where a stone staircase started spiralling its way around the tower and down to the floor far below.

“That ladder doesn't look too safe to me,” Lusam said, nodding towards the ancient looking construction. “By the look of the floor I would say it's been a long time since anyone came all the way up here to do any sight seeing.”

“You may be right, it's my first time up here and I lived here for over a decade. In the history books I read it tells us that the original temple's tower was many times higher than this one, and always manned. Subsequent buildings here have kept their towers so tall only as a symbolic gesture towards the original building. But I'm sure the ladder will hold us lad, don’t worry.”

“I'm not worried at all, you're the one going first remember? Not to mention, I'm the only one here that can fly,” Lusam replied, tying hard not to laugh at the look on Renn's face when he looked over the edge of the platform at just how far below the floor was. Renn only grunted his reply as he approached the ladder and prepared to descend to the next level.

Lusam was amazed that Renn was actually going to try and use this ancient  ladder, and hadn't just ask him to lower them both to the next level using magic instead. Lusam had thought it was hilarious when Renn had tried to cross the river back in The Black Forest and fallen in, but he thought watching him plummet from this ladder might be even funnier. He levitated himself out behind Renn as he started to descend the rickety old ladder. Renn didn't even notice Lusam a few feet behind him, hovering in mid-air, matching his descent rate. Suddenly the inevitable happened and the rung he was standing on gave way, he
held on tight with his hands, but that rung too gave way and he plummeted down the centre of the tower.
Lusam fell at the same rate as Renn, leaving him flailing his arms and legs silently in mid-air for several seconds before he decided to end his own amusement and rescue the paladin. He slowed their descent quickly and guided them both back towards the stone spiral staircase, where they gently touched down.

Renn stared up at Lusam, his face ghostly white. Lusam thought maybe he had gone too far with his joke this time, and decided to put a little distance between himself and that sword of his.

“Are you okay?” Lusam asked gingerly. Renn sat upright putting his back to the wall, he didn't look up at Lusam when he said,

“You did that on purpose, didn't you?”

“I swear I never touched that ladder, it broke all by itself. All I did was save you,” Lusam replied innocently, fighting the urge to burst out laughing.

“I meant, you let me fall all that way before you stopped me, and never told me you were right next to me all the way down,” he said calmly, still visibly shaken.

“Well, there was no point us walking all the way down hundreds of steps if we didn't have to, besides it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end of the fall that does it,” Lusam replied, unable to hold back his
amusement any longer.
“You were the one who insisted the ladder would be safe not me, but I also remember someone telling me, `
being over-confident will get you killed.`
Well at least I think that's what they said, I was in a lot of pain when they said it, so I may be wrong,” Lusam said, getting ready to jump over the side of the staircase if Renn moved too quickly. Renn shook his head and burst into laughter, startling Lusam.

“I see, so that was payback for me slapping your back-side with my sword earlier was it? Okay, I guess we're even now lad, but I'm still taking the lead in here,”

“Yeah, I made sure you were always ahead of me on the way down here too,” Lusam replied smiling at Renn, who had just managed to stand up again. Renn rolled his eyes and once more shook his head, but he wasn't able to keep his smile completely absent.

“Okay, enough messing around now, time to get serious. You should use your shield until we make official contact with the Praefectus in charge. There can be as many as two hundred recruits here training at any given time, and they have strict orders to kill any intruders on sight,” Renn said, all hint of humour now gone from his voice.

“But my shield is useless against a paladin's weapon, as I painfully found out not too long ago,”

“These men aren't yet paladins, they are only
recruits.
They will be armed with normal swords and crossbows, but even so, don't underestimate their skill level. All paladin recruits are chosen from the very best soldiers the regular army has to offer, and even then most never make it this far,” Renn replied with a hint of pride evident in his voice. Lusam nodded his agreement and erected his shield as instructed, he also created a small globe of light to illuminate their surroundings, which had become much darker now the last of the natural light from outside had completely disappeared.

They made their way down the final part of the spiral staircase to the ground below, where they found a single corridor leading away from the base of the tower. It was impossible to see how far back the corridor stretched as it was in complete darkness, so Lusam sent his light further in front of them both to check. Once his light orb illuminated the corridor it became evident that it was actually fairly short, before a large oak door blocked their way any further.

Renn walked towards the door and tried to push it open but to no avail, it was obviously locked from the other side.

“Now what?” Lusam asked, hoping Renn had a plan to open the door. He knew he could open it with force, but under the circumstances destroying part of a temple seemed
like a bad idea, especially if there were two hundred armed, and angry men at the other side of the door.
“Can you open the door with your magic?”

“Maybe if there was a lock I could melt it out or something, but I don’t see a keyhole. I think it might be barred from the other side, and I can't move what I can't see, well, not without destroying it anyway,” Lusam replied.

“Then I guess we knock,” Renn said, removing his sword and hammering on the door four times with the hilt. He then removed his shield, exposed his sigil of Aysha from inside his shirt and waited. After a while he knocked again another four times on the door with his sword hilt. This time they could hear the shouts of men beyond the door, accompanied by the more concerning sound of steel weaponry being readied.

***

Chapter Nineteen

Lusam was becoming concerned at the amount of time it was taking for whoever was at the other side of the door to open it. He knew it meant they were preparing their defences against whoever, or whatever would come through the door at them. Lusam extinguished his magical light and quickly extended his shield to also protect Renn, even knowing he would have probably objected if he had asked permission first, then he waited.

It wasn't long before the sounds of a large bar being removed filtered through from the other side of the door, then almost immediately the door was thrown open to reveal at least thirty men arranged in a semicircle, most of which were pointing crossbows at them menacingly.

“HOLD YOUR FIRE!” Renn boomed out, but one of the men loosed his crossbow bolt anyway, and it flew directly at Renn's head. Renn moved with impossible speed to block the crossbow bolt with his shield, and would have
easily done so if it had not impacted on Lusam's shield first, and fallen harmlessly to the ground in front of him.
“STAND DOWN!” came a commanding shout from inside the room. Renn turned to give Lusam a withering look for his shield stunt, and Lusam just shrugged his shoulders and smiled in reply.

“Renn, is that you?” asked a large man dressed in full chain-mail, approaching the doorway where they stood.

“Hershel! It's good to see you again old friend,” Renn replied, both men clasping each others arms in greeting. “I didn't expect to see you here, the last I heard you'd retired you old fox, what happened?”

“I did retire, but unfortunately my services were once again called upon. I'm afraid the war goes badly for us in Lamuria, old boy. Our numbers are dwindling fast in the face of the Empire's relentless assaults. Their necromancers have raised an army of undead to attack the capital, and they are backed up by a number of powerful magi. Our paladins dispatch the undead easy enough, but we have little defence against their magical assaults due to our lack of effective magi,” Hershel replied, then lowing his voice so only Renn and Lusam could hear he continued, “Just last week we lost more than a dozen recruits to an attack of poisoning here in the temple itself. Nobody knows how or where it came from, but morale has taken a beating from it,
that's for sure,”
“That's very troubling news indeed old friend. When I was last in Lamuria a year ago the attacks were only sporadic at best. It seems the Empire has finally decided to step up its attacks on Afaraon. Is that the reason why you have so few recruits here?” Renn said looking over Hershel's shoulder at the men arrayed behind him.