Magician Prince (19 page)

Elementalists, necromancers, and
manipulationists would be up on the walls and ramparts preparing to
rain down whatever power they could to squash the kingdom soldiers.
Enchanters like her held little value in a fight like this. There
were some traditional defenses, trebuchets and the like pointed out
to sea, but nothing of the caliber needed to repel a whole
navy.

The Collective boasted four hundred magicians
and many of them were versed in magical combat with the power to
take out a dozen men with ease, but still Alia could not help
feeling troubled. The addition of the naval forces would mean that
they would have to stretch their forces thinner than expected.

She could hear explosions all at once and
they seemed to come from everywhere. Avelice began to cry and Kaleb
tried to calm her, but soon regretfully handed her back to Alia.
Another round of explosions came and she fished the rune to Lion’s
Landing out of her pocket for comfort. If it became necessary and
it looked like they would be defeated every magician that could
cast a transportation spell was given a rune that would take them
to a safe location so that they could regroup and begin the fight
anew. Sane told them before his unexpected departure that the
collared magicians were never taught that spell, because their
jailers did not want them to have any spell knowledge that would
make it easier for them to escape should something happen to their
collars, so any runes found on a dead body would be useless to
them.

The battle of Wolfsbane had begun.

***

Wind elementalists did their best to repel
the iron balls that flew at Wolfsbane Castle, but for every one
that got past them another hit the magical barrier of a
manipulation magician, driving them to their knees from the
impacts, or smashing into the walls.

That was on the land. On the sea the
magicians did not fare much better as cannons fired across the
water. Some of their cannons struck the walls in an attempt to
cause a breach, but other soared much higher so that they would
land somewhere within the castle grounds in an attack that was
clearly an attempt to cause panic as much as genuine
destruction.

Elementalists more suited to the nature of
water attempted to manipulate the sea itself to wash away the
warships or at least throw off their aim. They were backed by a
retinue of the most powerful necromancers the Collective had at its
disposal who summoned water elementals, spiritual creatures that
took the shapes of giant half-men and were composed of water. Each
one required tremendous energy to manifest even for a master, but
there was no creature better able to withstand a cannon’s fire and
do massive damage to a ship than one of those beasts.

Xander watched the battle unfold in all
directions from his tower. His soldiers were outnumbered at greater
than twenty-five men to one, but they fought bravely. Refusing to
give any ground whether on land or sea. He did not want this fight
yet. Apprentices and journeymen that still required much training
made up two thirds of his army and were not ready force a conflict
of this scale. He would have preferred another year or two to
complete their educations, but the gods were rarely so kind to
magicians. Never the less, he felt a sense of pride as he watched
them do battle.

He descended the tower and made his way to
the front lines. Riona was summoning an earth elemental and sending
it out into the midst of the kingdom’s front lines to join a host
of other spirits and magical creatures summoned by her fellow
necromancers and bolstered by magicians using fire and lightning
from the walls.

Kenzai were dispersed throughout the army.
Their glowing weapons and anti-magical talents were wreaking havoc
among the spirits they faced. War wraiths were being pushed back
and dispelled almost as fast as they were summoned. Minor spirits
and spells would not so easily defeat the ancient enemies of
magic.

The grandmaster longed to attach himself to
one of these young men who fought at either side of him and absorb
their essence to fuel his most powerful spells, but it would be
foolish to attempt such a thing with so many witnesses. Instead he
would have to rely on his own weakening powers for a little bit
longer. Dark tentacles loosed from his fingertips and snaked across
the open field where arrows, magic, and cannon balls flew seeking
unwary soldiers that he could use to fuel his magic.

The tentacles latched onto several of the
soldiers and for an instant Xander felt a surge of power rush
toward him before it was immediately cut off and the black feelers
could not find a new host to attach to. He extended his vision and
looked more closely at the soldiers and cursed aloud. From each man
who a tentacle touched a blue flare of light burst from his chest.
He looked even closer and could make out the familiar symbol of a
magic absorbing rune etched into each of their armors. If he had
been closer, then he would have been able to overpower the rune or
mar it enough to render it useless, but from across the battlefield
the runes had won out. Those damnable runes would weaken every
spell that came near them. Every ball of fire or magical spirit
would be drained of some of its energy. Many of those soldiers
would still die, but they would be that much more difficult to kill
and the runes would act as an erosion to the Collective magicians’
reserves of power.

Kingdom magicians sent balls of flame and
water toward the castle walls and main gate. They were stationed at
either side of the regular battalions away from the rune-guarded
soldiers, but were already beginning to suffer heavy losses. Xander
noted that the commander of this army did not seem concerned with
protecting his magical units as expected.

Xander was about to check on the magicians
defending against the warships when several blasts of blue flame
broke through magical barriers and seared some of the magicians on
the wall to his far right. All magic ceased in that area and a wave
of cannonballs came crashing into the wall at that point scattering
the magicians stationed there. He ran to their aid even as he
ordered others to move into that area and reestablish a
defense.

“Are you all right, son?” he asked the first
magician that he came to- a young man in his teens. He had dirty,
brown hair and wore a brown apprentice’s cloak. He looked in pain,
but no injuries were immediately apparent.

The young man coughed and allowed Xander to
help him to his feet. “I am unharmed, my lord. Just feel a little…”
He was unable to give words to the way he felt, but Xander had a
guess of the cause. He reached out to feel the subtle flow of magic
that all magicians exuded as naturally as they drew a breath and
felt nothing from this young man. It was as he feared.

“You’re magic has been expended by a Kenzai
flame. Go and get some rest,” Xander told him. “You’ll be fine by
morning.” To the others he shouted, “Don’t allow the blue fires to
touch you. They will burn away your magic in an instant.” Several
nearby men nodded and passed on the message even as more Kenzai
attacks came interspersed from the captive magicians and
traditional siege weaponry.

The magicians became stretched thin as their
numbers lessened from the Kenzai magic and the occasional attrition
over the next hour and the kingdom’s army pressed closer crowding
into the town’s streets and hiding behind buildings to avoid the
magicians’ assaults. Explosions could be heard from the streets
below to Xander’s surprise. These were not the explosions of the
far off warships or the army’s cannons, but something much closer.
A look to the streets below revealed the mystery as men jumped out
from behind homes and shops with a stick in hand and pointed it at
several magicians along the wall. A loud series of bangs was
followed by smoke wafting from the holes of those sticks and one of
the magicians fell over clutching at his chest. He knew these
things. Tomlin carried one around with him like a trophy. It was a
hand-cannon and as the name implied it could be easily transported
in one’s hand and fire little metal balls wherever they
pointed.

“Those are hand-cannons!” It was Alia. She
must have gotten fed up with waiting in safety. The role of damsel
was one that she was not accustomed to playing and it would seem
that this time would not be any different. “Remember what you have
been told and don’t get rattled. Elementalists make a priority of
targeting them. It takes a minute or so for them to reload, so they
are slow and their weapons can be easily disabled with your spells.
Fire and lightning will ignite the weapons’ powder causing them to
explode prematurely. Water can douse their powder and wind can blow
it away. You have nothing to fear from them.” Their eyes met from
across the wall and Xander nodded in approval. She nodded back, but
quickly returned to the task of directing these men.

The magician who was struck in the chest was
quickly dying when Xander made it to him. The iron ball was lodged
near his heart and his valuable blood source was pouring out. “You
will soon be dead,” Xander told him matter-of-factly, “but your
death does not have to be in vain. I could use your life energy to
lay waste to the men who did this to you.”

“Do it,” said the wounded magician in a
hurried gasp and Xander placed his hand to the man’s wound. He
pulled the dying magician’s energy into his own body and felt the
surge of power course through him. He would make this man’s death
count for something.

Black energy emitted from him in waves as he
formed the power into a terrible spell. His staff shook in his
elderly hands as he pushed the energy out and created a dark ball
of magic about the size of a man’s fist. The last time he had used
this spell was at Baj when he laid waste to the prison. Then it was
a far more impressive spell powered by the lives of thousands of
people. However, it would still serve his needs well and give the
kingdom a reminder of why they feared magicians the same way that a
rabbit knows to fear a hawk.

He pushed his staff downward in the general
direction of the hiding kingdom soldiers who were in the middle of
reloading their hand-cannons. The ball pulsed its black energy as
it slowly made its decent, but Xander did not wait to watch the
effect. Instead he made his way a little further down and took aim
at another group of soldiers, this time with Kenzai in their ranks
and sent another black ball in their direction. Some of the
magicians that were with him at Baj saw the small black orbs making
their way to Xander’s intended targets and warned those around them
to get down.

Then he saw an even more appealing target.
Far off beyond the town and in the middle of the farmland stood an
array of command tents. They were far out of range of most spells
and so the men there who orchestrated this conflict surely felt
safe from the deaths they set into motion on this day.

Xander gathered the last of his power for one
more energy ball and sent it floating over the battlefield. It was
halfway towards the command tents when the first black ball of
energy exploded a short way from the castle’s main gate. The ground
rocked at the force and several magicians had to grab the wall to
keep from inadvertently falling over though most had listened to
their fellow magicians’ warnings and were already braced for the
impact. A dozen buildings of wood and clay were ripped asunder by
the blast at its core along with any living creatures caught in the
immediate area.

The second blast occurred only a half minute
later and the effect was no different to Xander’s pleasure. More
buildings and bodies were thrown outward from the violent release
of magic and Xander thought he could feel the dark countenance of
his goddess, Kassani, smiling at him. He had given her many new
souls on this day and would give her more if she willed it.

Already kingdom soldiers and Kenzai were
falling back to the outskirts of Wolfsbane. Only the magicians with
their control collars remained, because no one had thought to tell
them to retreat. Fortunately the Collective did not want to hurt
their collared brethren any more than necessary and they were left
relatively unmolested.

The third energy ball was now descending on
the command tents and the nobility that lead their foot soldiers
here to die were scattering like cockroaches. The ball was going to
fall a little short and it appeared that many of the kingdom’s
leaders would have enough warning from the first two explosions to
get out of the blast radius. It was a shame that he would fail to
remove the military’s head this day, but he took some solace in
watching their personal tents, the luxuries that were always within
such places, and a retinue of Kenzai masters who thought they could
drain the energy from the spell get ripped apart once the explosion
triggered.

Now someone had finally had the sense to pull
back the collared magicians and the kingdom forces began to regroup
at a distance. A series of horns blew out in the far off field and
soon the sounds of cannons firing ceased as the warships moved out
of range. There would be no more fighting this day while the
kingdom generals figured out how to deal with this latest
development.

Xander had to use every bit of his will to
stay on his feet. That final blast took not only the last of the
young magician’s energy, but all of Xander’s personal reserve as
well. He suddenly felt the press of disease on his ailing body as
the magic he devoted to keeping himself alive had been spent for
the moment. Maybe it was time for him to claim Byrn’s power for his
own. The thought of what he could do with that kind of power behind
him was almost too much to imagine, but it would have to wait at
least one more day, as he was too weak to perform the ritual
now.