Master Mage (25 page)

It didn’t take long for the meeting to
conclude as Killian had already designed the battle plan with the
Katanga reinforcements in mind. Everyone had a task, and if one
failed, it would be almost certain the rest of them would follow.
Outnumbered as they were, there was no place for mistakes. Killian
had drilled that fact into everyone’s mind for the past few days,
and he seemed to stress it even more as the battle drew
near.

With the war council over, Thad made
his way back to his own unit’s camping position. They might have
been an odd paring of individuals, but Thad had grown accustomed to
their antics. As he approached the row of tents, Thad heard Jayden
playing a lively tune on his flute. It had become a habit of the
large man to play the flute for most of the night before a battle.
He had said it calmed his nerves, and Thad had to agree. The music
might have been simple, and had Jayden not been an internal magic
user, Thad would have sworn the musical notes had magic intertwined
with them.

Thad took a place around the large
campfire. It had been the first one they had in weeks as they
didn’t want to draw attention. Now Killian insisted they let their
enemy know where they were. They had attacked constantly, never
giving the Rane army a night without Reeve doing his work and
Killian hoping that more than a few of their soldiers would be too
envious to sleep well. Having a few tired soldiers in their army
would not be a huge advantage, but Killian wanted every advantage
that he could get, no matter how small.

“
Gallian, sing us a song to
go with Jayden’s music,” one of them hollered out. Gallian was a
young man who had been sold to the Farlan army when he was just a
kid, much the same way Thad had been. More than once, Thad had
heard the man sing and thought that he would be much more useful in
one of the traveling performing groups than in the army.

“Jayden, I don’t think we know any of
the same songs. Think you can keep up?” Gallian asked
joyfully.

“We march to the beat of ba … attle,”
Gallian sang as he picked up his sword and shield and slapped them
together three times. After repeating the same verse and then
hitting his shield with his sword, the others started to join
in.

We march to the beat of ba …
attle.

We dance to the sound of ba
… attle.

We cry to the sound of ba …
attle.

Thad soon found himself singing and
clapping along to the sound. It started to pick up as other voices
joined in, but even then, Gallian’s deep baritone could easily be
heard. Within moments, Thad had forgotten the worries of the coming
battle and instead had them replaced with feelings of courage and
pride as the sound of the singing reverberated through
him.

As the song came to an end, Thad
noticed that more than the men from his own camp had come to sing
along. The cheers that rose up from the gathered crowd asking for
more were deafening, but Thad couldn’t help but add in his own as
well. Gallian and Jayden bowed and started on another tune. Where
the last song had been fast and intoxicating, this one was slow and
pulled at Thad’s heart.

As Thad lay down that night, he still
found himself humming along to the lively song that had been played
earlier. He didn’t know all the words, but the tune was simple
enough that even he could carry it without too much
fuss.

The shouts of soldiers enjoying
themselves were soon replaced the next morning as they prepared to
march to battle. Some of the men could still be heard singing, but
it had a much more somber feeling to it than it had the night
before.

Thad always hated the waiting for the
battle to start, but today, Rane didn’t seem keen on prolonging
things. Almost as soon as both armies were fielded, Rane started
its march. Just as Killian had thought, the cavalry were all
located on the edges of the formation. Thad could do little about
the ones on the other end of the field. He would have to trust
Reeve and his men to take care of those, but he could try his best
to stop the ones in front of him. Rane had two thousand cavalry
against his six hundred men. To most people, it would have looked
like bad odds, but Thad had been training his men just for this
fight for days. It still wasn’t the best situation he could ask
for, but he was sure that he could do his part in the
battle.

Just as was planned, Thad used his
magic to place stone pillars anytime the cavalry tried to move too
far away from the army. Once they knew they had to ride through
Thad’s meager force to get behind the best of the army, they dug in
their heels and charged at full speed.

Thad’s unit waited until the horsemen
were almost upon them before each one of them dropped to their
knees and pulled up large lances that were easily ten feet long.
The horsemen, caught unaware, drove headlong into the long poles,
snapping timber under the horse’s weight.

The long poles had done their job
taking out a large number of the horsemen and scaring the ones
left. Thad’s men wasted no time, though, and continued their
offensive. It was a simple tactic. Thad would use his magic to
unhorse any man he could find. His men would claim the free horses
and fight from them.

His men worked efficiently, but they
were still vastly outnumbered, and the Rane horsemen had
recuperated from the sneak attack much faster than anticipated.
Before even a tenth of his men had horses, they were already being
pushed back. They fought hard, and for every man that fell, they
took at least one with them, but those were odds that didn’t favor
them.

Soon, Thad and less than half his men
were being herded together as the horsemen rode around them in an
ever-tightening circle. Thad tried to use his magic, striking out
at whatever presented itself, but it didn’t seem to affect the
well-trained troops.

Thad saw Jayden break from the group
and grab one of the passing horsemen and throw him from the horse
as if he weighed no more than a child. As the man continued his
assault, Thad started to see hair sprout from his skin, and soon,
where Jayden had stood now was a mountain lion the size of a bear.
So shocked was Thad by the sudden transformation he forgot his
surroundings and was nearly taken down by one of the horsemen’s
lances.

Jayden continued his rampage, gaining
the attention of almost every cavalryman. Seeing a break in their
ranks, Thad ordered his men to fight for their lives, and that was
what they did. Instead of heading toward the breach and safety
behind them, the men ran to Jayden’s aid.

Avalanche was the first to reach
Jayden’s side, jumping up and dragging one of the horsemen to the
ground. As he rushed ahead, Thad caught a glimpse of Arianna doing
her own part as she flew above the heads of the riders, using her
magic to blind and confuse them. Thad tried to build up his own
magic, but the second it began to feel him small multicolored dots
formed in his vision, and he was forced to let it go.

Unable to use his magic, Thad used what
tools were left to him, his staff and sword. Tired and ragged, Thad
fought on with what little strength he had left. The men sitting
too high for an easy reach of his sword, Thad focused on the legs
of the animals. He felt bad about harming an animal whose only sin
was to carry its rider, but he had little choice if he wished to
survive. After he had downed his second man, Thad heard a loud horn
sound in the distance, and what was left of the riders who were
able retreated in great haste.

With the battlefield cleared of
enemies, Thad was left to survey the battlefield. The whole of the
Rane army had begun to pull back. The ground for as far as he could
see was littered with the dead and dying. Focusing on his own men,
Thad searched the bodies to see if any yet lived. Until he came
across Tuck, who lay writhing on the ground, his leg mangled badly
from where he had been trampled by one of the horsemen. Thad helped
his young friend to his feet.

After getting the wounded onto the
backs of what horses remained behind, less than fifty of his
soldiers remained without one grievous wound or another. They had
forced the Rane army back, but the cost had been high. How long
would they wait before they attacked again? Thad asked himself as
he made his way toward where the rest of the army was
regrouping.

Directly after reaching the camp, Thad
headed for the command tent. Inside, Thad found the generals within
the tent, most of whom carried one wound or another. “Lad, good ta
see that ya made it through that mess,” Crusher said shortly after
Thad entered the tent.

“You as well,” Thad replied
automatically, grabbing his friend’s offered hand. “How did we
fare?” Thad asked, turning to where Killian and Bache stood hunched
over the map.

“Not bad, but not good either,” Killian
said, never looking up from the map. “We have lost over half our
force tonight, but they fought and died well.”

“Half,” Thad said to himself. Half of
their force gone in the course of one battle. How many more would
die in the next? Would there even be one left standing after the
next battle?

“Sir, they have raised the flag,” a
young man reported after running into the tent.

“Good, have the men that are able head
to the field and help build the pyre,” Bache ordered.

“Won’t the Rane soldiers simply kill
any of our men who wander too close?” Thad asked.

“Rane has flown the banner of temporary
truce so that we may clear the battlefield of the dead. I do not
even think the Brotherhood would dare to break the rules of the
truce, or the majority of their army would leave them. As of
tonight, we have a day’s reprieve from battle to mourn and honor
the dead.”

“I think I will help clear the dead,”
Thad replied before leaving the tent. Grabbing one of the horses,
Thad headed back toward the battlefield along with close to a
thousand other men.

Thad chose to help clear the woods for
lumber for the pyre as others gathered the bodies that lay strewn
across the battlefield. Working beside him were two Rane soldiers
who looked as weary as he.

The manual labor of striking the trees
over and over to fell them made Thad forget about the bloody battle
that had taken place less than an hour before. “I saw you before.
You’re that fellow that dropped the ball of lighting on the
captain,” the younger of the two soldiers said. “How did you do
that?”

“Magic,” Thad replied, swinging his axe
hard into the tree in front of him.

“Magic ain’t real,” the young soldier
replied, laughing. “Captain said it was a trick of some
sort.”

“If you don’t believe in magic after
everything we’ve seen during this cursed war, then you ain’t got
the sense the gods gave any boy,” the older soldier
said.

“Then I wish we had a few mages on our
end of the field,” the boy quipped back as he swung his hammer to
drive in the wedge to split one of the fallen trees.

“If you did, they wouldn’t survive the
night,” Thad said angrily.

“Why, would your little assassins get
to ’em?” the soldier retorted, stopping in midswing and turning
toward Thad, giving him a scathing glare. “A kid I grew up with was
one of the victims of y’all’s nighttime visits. Didn’t even want to
come to this war, and your boys gave him a smile ear to ear when he
was on watch.”

“Give it a rest, lad,” the older
soldier said, grabbing the younger one by the collar. “It’s war.
People are going to die.”

The young soldier broke away from the
older man’s grasp and rushed up to Thad, stopping his face only
inches away from his. “I should give you a smile and add your body
to the pile for burning.”

Thad shook his head and tapped the
soldier lightly on the side, sending a small jolt of magic into
him. As the soldier fell to the ground, the older man grabbed for
his sword, and Thad quickly threw up his hands. “He is only
sleeping,” Thad said, taking a step back. “Check for yourself. I
figured there had been enough bloodshed today, and it was the only
way I could think to keep from adding more.”

The older soldier walked over to the
man lying on the ground and placed his ear against his chest. After
a few moments, he stood and gave Thad a smile and shrugged his
shoulders. “Well, at least I won’t have to hear any more of his
whining tonight, though it will make splitting the wood a little
harder on my own.”

The rest of the night passed
peacefully. Thad found the old soldier a good man who didn’t even
show a hint as to the real reason behind the war nor did he seem to
care. His king had called him to fight, and like a good man, he had
heeded the call. As he worked, Thad wondered how many more of the
Rane soldiers only fought on the orders of their king instead of
personal conviction. For that matter, how many of his own soldiers
fought for the same reason?

After enough logs were cut and stacked,
the bodies of the dead were piled high upon the pyre. It didn’t
matter what uniform they wore or what race they belonged to. In
death, they were all given the same treatment. Once their work was
done, all that was left was to light the pyre, but with mostly
green, that was starting to pose a problem.

After over an hour of waiting, Thad
added his own help, using his magic to help the fire take root. He
didn’t have enough strength left to force the whole of the large
pyre to take to the fire, but he was able to get most of it
started, and the rest quickly followed on its own
accord.