Twixt Heaven And Hell (18 page)

Arric was silent for a moment. It was truly a miraculous new world, Darius decided, when the Council Leader listened to him and considered his suggestions.

“I will discuss this with the Generals,” Arric said at last. When he finished, they could both hear the sounds of many footsteps, like a rain shower approaching the chamber.

Darius noticed that Arric seemed to perk up as the wizard arrived for the council session. This truly was his arena, as combat was to Darius. It was good to be where you belonged.

When the High Council members had taken their seats in the center and the rest had lined upon along the walls, Arric stood from his stone chair. The room immediately fell silent. Darius noticed some of the wizards glancing at him – all knew that something was afoot between the two old rivals.

“My friends,” he began, as was his tradition. “today we have much to discuss. The first matter is long overdue, by my own admission.”

Darius could not hide the smile that grew on his face.

Arric continued. “Amongst us is a wizard who has pioneered a new way of thinking, and a new way of fighting, that has been most effective and is worthy of emulation. Darius, please step forward.”

Darius did so.

“You have fought, and fought well, for four years now. We have been shown that your tactics, when properly applied – and controlled,” Arric added with a wry smirk, “are most effective. It is for this reason that, effective immediately, the Council is authorizing the creation of additional units to be modeled upon your Gryphons.”

Widespread murmurs and even a few cheers followed the pronouncement. Darius bowed to Arric, who returned the gesture. Both raised their hands for silence, and got it quickly.

Arric then addressed the chamber as a whole. “Darius has already worked with me to select five wizards whom will assume these new commands. I name these five now.”

Arric picked up the list from off the table before him. As he read each name in turn, the elected stepped forward to the acknowledgment of their fellows. Jotan turned a surprised look on Darius, who just smiled and applauded with the rest. Young Alain, the youngest of those on the list, broke into an absurd grin. Brannon, the former soldier, nodded somberly. Selman – the one supporter of Arric who had been picked – looked thoroughly astounded, glancing to Arric and Darius both in surprise. Finally, a large, quiet wizard called Tobra was named. Tobra was another wizard whose Talent had been discovered later in his life than was normal. His tribe lived in the far northern reaches of the territory Bastion policed, far from the war.

“These men will be under Darius’s tutelage. Like the Gryphons, the soldiers they lead will be our finest men. We wish you luck in your new commands.”

There was a last bout of applause, and the selected wizards stepped back into the general crowd.

“We wish you luck indeed,” Arric repeated. “We will all need luck in the coming days. As many of us know, we expect an attack somewhere into the Threeforts valley. This attack could come at any time. With their Firewalking spell, the Enemy can strike deep into the region, anywhere they’ve held in living memory.”

Hanging his head in what Darius considered a very nice bit of dissembling, Arric sighed. “Our counterspell is not ready. We will try to make preparations to defend against the next assault, but after the taking of Nebeth and with our current situation in the Shambles, our forces are spread thin. All areas of Threeforts valley are alerted to the situation. They are as ready as they can be, for the moment.”

A fine set of lies, Darius thought. Seeing Arric in action – and knowing the act for what it was – was a much better state of affairs than being on the receiving end of the deception.

“To all of you currently searching for a counter to the Firewalking ability, I urge you to redouble your efforts. The longer the Enemy retains this advantage, the more dire our situation becomes.”

A somber silence had the room in its grip. Arric let them all absorb it for a moment.

"There may be dark times ahead. We will greet them as we always have – with determination. Due to the dire situation at Threeforts, I have ordered the construction of a brace of new forts in the north. We will not surrender the valley, but we must prepare for the worst."

Somebody recommended that as many wizards as possible be sent to the Threeforts valley strongholds. There were a couple of ayes to this very extreme measure. Darius was not amongst them, though some of the supporters looked to him to agree. He said nothing, waiting as Arric struck down the idea.

"We will reinforce with what soldiers we can," Arric repeated. "But I will not task more wizards to the area. I am even considering moving those of our fellows that already garrison those forts."

The reaction to that was mostly negative. Cutting losses was one thing – ceding the valley without a fight was another. When the protests had died down, Arric reassured the crowd. "No action will be taken without the due deliberation of the High Council. That is all for now, my friends.”

As the wizards began to exit, Darius spoke. "If the new commanders would meet me in the hall..."

Darius assembled the men and, without a word, he led them out of the tower. He led them away from the Crown, down dusty streets still crowded with city folk going about their own business. Turning onto the main thoroughfare, he led them straight out the main gates of the city, drawing odd looks from the soldiers who opened the gates for him.

When he had led them about a bow shot’s distance from the walls, he finally stopped and turned cool stare on the other wizards.

"We are now outside the city," he announced unnecessarily. "Does that make any of you nervous?"

As one, the wizards before him burst into laughter.

Jotan replied first. "No, Darius. We're quite comfortable outside the city,
and
we're perfectly aware that our new commands will keep us out here more often than usual. Are you satisfied?"

"On that one small point, yes," Darius said with a smile. "I chose you five for many reasons. I am confident that you will do well in this new role I have thrust you into. When I formed the Gryphons, I knew that I could not foresee all the situations we would face. I also knew that I would have to learn most of my lessons would all-too-likely to be bought with blood. How right I was."

The smiles were gone from their faces now. Good. Darius wanted them to be proud, but he also wanted them to approach this new task with eyes open and unclouded.

"I have learned much. I will try and prepare you to confront the same things I have, to give you the skills you'll need to survive in the field, and to help your soldiers survive as well. At first your own men may fear you. They may be wary of you. You must make them respect and trust you. This is not the smallest task that awaits you, I promise."

“Surely the men trust us, Darius,” said Alain. Youngest amongst them, he was fiery and passionate about his role in the war. He probably held many of the same views as Darius had at that age – most of them wrong.

“No, Alain. They do not trust us. They do not
distrust
us either. Our traditional role in battle has given them little reason to believe that we think about them at all. Your men must know that you keep their safety and well-being in mind.” Darius turned his gaze to Brannon. Though the man had been a soldier, he was the most recently raised wizard there, and would be most steeped in the doctrine. Darius wasn't even sure if the man had seen battle in his new capacity.

“If a sorcerer strikes out at the troops near you, what is your first reaction?”

“To locate and destroy him,” Brannon responded immediately. The rest of them nodded.

“Not to defend the soldiers against his attack?”

None responded to that right away. Darius resisted the urge to shake his head. Even as an acolyte, he thought that the teachings had too often ignored the reasons behind their lessons. If a man was not taught the reasons behind a doctrine, how would he know when it was proper and good to break from it?

Jotan spoke up first. “No. If we choose to defend the soldiers, we give the sorcerer the advantage. He may strike at us, or them, again. He may succeed. If we kill him first, we have protected the soldiers that way.”

“Except for those who die before you succeed.”

“But less than would perish otherwise,” Selman kicked in. He was tall, with a shock of blonde hair that often draped itself partially across his eyes, causing the man to constantly toss his head like a fly-bitten cow to remove it.

“So your training has taught you. I do not say it is wrong. The point is, you do not defend the soldiers directly. They are grateful when the attacks stop, and surely some of them see that you were the cause, but many see only the dead and dying. They feel that perhaps you could have done something more, if you cared to." Darius took a deep breath. "I know this because I asked. My men were nervous around me at first. My lieutenant eventually told me why. You must remember that most people have little to do with wizards. The unknown has the tendency to be unsettling.”

They were silent again. “This is just one of the troubles that surprised me. I overcame it in time. I dare say that my men now have complete trust in me. They know that while I may ask them to give their lives, I will give my every effort to ensuring that they do so only when necessary.

“Due to other circumstances, our training may not begin in earnest for a few days – but I will see you for at least a time each day from now until the day you are sent out with your men to make trouble on the border. Tomorrow, meet me in front of the Crown an hour after dawn.”

***

“You look nervous.”

Balkan nodded distractedly. “I am nervous. You should be as well.”

“The counter will work,” Darius said.

Balkan shrugged. “We will be dealing with a great deal of power here. There is much room for something to go wrong.”

“That is why we designed it as we did, though. The dispelling wizard need take no burden of power on himself.”

With another shrug, Balkan returned to his reverie.

They north of Bastion, deeper into the foothills of the mountain range and beyond the settled areas. Towards the city, in the extreme distance, a few orchard-spotted hills could still be seen.

“Can you not tell us why we're out here?” Jotan asked. He stood in a group with Darius's other students. More wizards stood beyond them, a dozen in all.

Darius shook his head. “You'll learn soon enough.”

For fear of the spy, Arric had personally drawn up the list of wizards who were to participate with the day's trial. Most of them had had knowledge of the aborted attack on Cairn. Arric was sure that, had the spy been a party to those plans, those men would not have remained unmolested for so long.

A few moments later Arric arrived with two more wizards at his heels, bringing their total number to seventeen. He nodded curtly to Balkan and Darius, seeming a bit out of breath from the hike from the city – a fact which put the ghost of a smile on Darius's face. Despite this, Arric wasted no time to rest.

“My fellows,” he began, and the mutterings of the group quieted. “You are no doubt curious as to why you've been called out here. Know that, of necessity, I misled the council about our defenses against Firewalking. We do have a working counter, and you shall all be a party in its final test. Balkan, if you would.”

Balkan joined Arric in front of the group. The apprehension disappeared from his face as he slipped into his familiar role of instructor.

“As Arric said, this is to be the final test, and it shall be one of scale. We need you here not for the counterspell, but to help enact the Firewalking spell itself. The counter is deconstructive in nature. Firewalking consumes vast amounts of energy and requires a complex structure to keep them all in check – it is this structure that we disrupt. I shall explain more when you have seen it in action.”

Balkan turned to Darius. “Ready?”

“If you are, my friend.”

Balkan moved away from the main group, striding to the crown of a nearby hill, and shouted that he was prepared.

“Gentlemen, your cooperation please.”

Darius had scouted the area earlier on. He did not know how far he would be able to reach, but resolved to try for a large hill a full four miles away. It had a copse of hoary old aspens on the far slope, a very memorable spot.

The seeker darted away, a scintilla of magic barely noticeable even to the man who directed it. He felt when it found its target, linking the distant hillside with the ground in front of him.

“Now,” he said.

Darius felt magic fill him as, one by one, the wizards around him summoned up their own powers and placed them at his direction. The power coursed through him, invigorating his body. A moment later, he set it to work.

He had expected it to be difficult. Darius even thought he might have to try again with a closer target – but he had underestimated the kind of force that so many wizards could summon. It required little effort on his part – as soon as he willed it, flame erupted from the ground before him and the spell completed.

In the distance a brief flash marked the initial appearance of the far door. The excess energy was burned off and funneled upward, creating the distinctive pillar of fire that announced the spell's creation. Immediately he had to fight to maintain the spell, as these two disparate points of reality did not like their sudden and unnatural proximity to each other and sought to undo the aberration. Darius forbade it, maintaining the supremacy of his will over nature.