Guild Mage: Apprentice-Chapter : 157 Night Raid

Liv accepted a cup of watered wine from Thora; once she’d been served, the lady’s maid stepped back to take her place along the stone wall of Baron Arnold’s war room. It was not nearly so grand as the one Liv had seen at Akela Kila, but the Crosbies had the requisite large table in the center, along with a great hide map of the valley to spread over it.

“From our walls to the Foundry itself is just under seven miles,” Arnold Crosbie said, waving a hand to indicate the space between the two ends of the map. “Our oldest records say that there was once a river that ran the length of the valley, but that when Antris built the foundry, all the water was diverted into the old god’s machinery to fuel his war machines. Regardless, there’s a ravine that runs down from these mountains, through the heart of the valley. We could use that for cover.”

“How long to cover it at night, on horseback?” Duchess Julianne asked.

“Three hours,” Arnold said. “The ground is broken, full of loose rocks. And even down there, we’ll find wrecked machinery. There’s a lot of things a horse can turn an ankle on.”

Sidonie, across the table, shook her head. “The entire time we’re down there, those Iravata archers could set up on either side of the ravine and riddle us with arrows. That’s exactly how the Eld under Väinis massacred five hundred unconquered during the mountain campaign against the Lady of Thorns.”

One of Arnold Crosbie’s sons - Bliant, Liv was pretty certain - turned to the spectacled young woman. “How you know all that?” he asked bluffly.

“I read,” Sidonie answered him, her voice flat. “You can learn a lot from history.”

“It won’t take us three hours,” Liv broke in. “And we won’t be using horses.” She turned to where Rosamund stood on her right side. “Seven miles. Can you do it?”

“I might need a bit of mana,” the dark haired girl said, slowly. “But yes.”

“Good.” Julianne nodded her head and moved on. “Now, once we get there -”

☙

Overhead, clouds gathered between the great ring in the sky, and the world below. The brilliant white glow of the ring lit the clouds from within, rendering them ghostly puffs of gray that were visible for a moment, and then drifted on their way. In between, in the few remaining patches where the night sky was clear, cold stars glittered.

A great grinding and rumbling noise filled the ravine. Liv crouched, her left hand on the mass of stone that Rose had dredged up through the soil, her right holding her wand, as she focused on reaching up to the clouds above. Her armor was a comforting presence, encasing her like the shell of a crab. The rock face, exposed to open air for the first time in hundreds or thousands of years, was a full thirty feet across, with more than enough room for their entire raiding party.

Rose stood at the head of the rock, eyes half lidded, right arm outstretched, palm down and fingers spread. Liv doubted that she could have fallen off if she fell asleep, but no one else was quite so cavalier, and the rest of the group crouched low, like Liv. Beneath them, the earth of the ravine roiled, pushing them forward along the crest of a great wave that rose up and then fell back away behind them. Dust and pebbles tumbled down the ravine to either side, and Liv half expected the entire thing to collapse in on them at any moment. Maybe it all would have, if it hadn’t been for Rose’s magic.

When they burst out of the ravine and up to the surface, it was directly at the foot of the great machines that Wren had scouted during the day. Liv could hardly see them as anything but shadows, but she doubted that would be a problem for very long. On the ground, the banked embers of cookfires glowed, illuminating the tents where the Elden troops were already scrambling up, snatching their weapons in hand. Liv could feel the increase in mana density that signalled they’d entered the shoals of the rift.

Matthew, Triss, Bliant and Rose drew swords and scrambled down off the rock face, which had dug itself a deep furrow into the floor of the valley before finally coming to a rest. The four set themselves in a line, where they would hold the Eld so that the mages in the rear could get to work.

With a whispered incantation, Sidonie used her family’s word of power to throw glowing coals from the cookfires into the tents. Before the Eld of House Iravata had time to form lines, their tents were on fire, lighting the burgeoning battlefield with a ruddy glow.

In the meanwhile, Liv and Julianne went to work. The two women joined hands, side by side, and each held a wand. “Excellent work with the clouds,” the duchess remarked, her dark hair caught up by a rising wind. “They’re ready to burst. Now, let me teach you a few spells. Lucet Cvelia o’Mae!”

With a sharp, downward stroke of Julianne’s bone wand, lightning poured down out of the clouds like rain. She circled her wand, gathering it into a great, spinning wheel, so blindingly bright that Liv’s eyes hurt to look, and then flung it forward into the ranks of the gathering Eld.

The wheel of lightning shot away from them like a flat stone skipped across water, and when it hit the Iravatan infantry, branches of white-hot power shot out, touching the blades of swords, the bosses of shields, the buckles of belts, attracted to every bit of metal the soldiers carried. Screams rose from the ranks of the enemy, and where men and women had once stood, twitching, steaming corpses fell to the ground.

Arrows rose from behind the Iravatan troops, whistling in the night air - and not alone. Spells followed the arrows: lances of fire, grasping shadows, lashes of blood. Sidonie shouted into the wind, and great panes of blue mana, striated with gold veins, flickered into existence, catching the enemy attacks and standing against them like a stout wall of stone.

“I can’t hold against another wave like that,” Sidonie shouted.

“You won’t have to - Lucet Cvelia o’Mae!” Liv sang, shaping her intent to match Julianne’s earlier spell. She drew lighting down from the clouds above - clouds she’d spent nearly an hour priming by controlling thousands of miniscule ice crystals. Luc roared at the back of her mind, and she struggled bending the royal word of power to her will: it didn’t want to do anything but crash down to the ground, as quickly as possible.

Still, Liv shaped the lightning into another wheel, and this one she sent flying into the Iravatan back line, decimating the archers even as they drew back for another volley. The arrows and spells never came - or at least, not in the overwhelming numbers of their first attack.

In front of them, Triss and her brother Bliant danced among the Elden infantry, both clearly using their word of power. In what glimpses Liv could catch of the two siblings, neither even came close to being touched by an enemy weapon. It was as if they could see every strike before it happened, and were aware of every opening with time enough to exploit the vulnerability. Half a dozen infantry were already slumped at their feet.

Matthew, in contrast, was armored in jack of plate, and more willing to accept a few blows to get in his own strikes. Wherever his blade struck, even the slightest cut, men or women withered, shrivelled, and died, every drop of moisture sucked out of their body. Rose fought more conservatively: unlike the other three, she’d already used up most of her mana, Liv knew. But she’d always been good with a sword, and she held the line.

Once Liv’s ring of lightning had passed, a small dark shape swooped down from the sky, and then Wren was in among the surviving archers and casters with an enchanted dagger in each hand. Liv grinned: the huntress had told them the weakest point of House Iravata, and they were exploiting it ruthlessly.

☙

“I’m still not certain we have enough people to assault a group of Eld,” Matthew had objected, around the map table. “Every one of them will have magic, won’t they? And some more than one word.”

“It isn’t as bad as you think,” Wren said. “Trust me, I travelled with their leader for years. We trained our people together for weeks before the assault on Soltheris. The problem is their word.” She looked over to Liv. “Iravat. It allows them to control and speak to wyrms. Remind you of anyone else we know?”

“House Sherard,” Liv realized, with a grin. “Who are essentially useless without their birds. It makes them great at gathering information - spies could be anywhere, at any time. But in a duel, they can’t do anything except send a flock of birds to peck at you. Kill the birds, and it's over.”

“And thanks to Wren, we know how many wyrms there are,” Sidonie pointed out. “Three. Three wyrms, all of which will be sluggish and sleeping at night.”

“Which means we only have to worry about the warriors who’ve learned a second word of power,” Liv said. “And that won’t be more than a handful.”

“I can even tell you which words it's likely to be,” Wren said. “Ract, obviously - imprinted from their great mother. Æter, from that old goat from the east. And a few of them had Nec - darkness.”

“You won’t be fighting three hundred mages,” Arnold Crosbie realized, shaking his head. “You’ll be fighting three hundred dead men, and half a dozen mages. With the advantage of surprise.”

☙

A lance of fire flew out from the hand of a half dressed Elden woman - she must have been asleep when the sound of their arrival made it to the camp. Wren dissolved into blood, and the jet of fire burned straight through the viscous liquid, continued on, and set one of the archers aflame. Wren reformed as soon as the magical assault had passed, and slit the woman’s throat.

“Check Wren for burns when we’re done,” Liv called back to Arjun, turning her head to be certain her friend could hear her clearly. He nodded, and then flinched at another peal of thunder. Liv turned back to the battle to see another bolt of lightning lash down from the dark clouds above, transfixing a warrior with his sword raised high. With the enemy formations broken, Julianne was now opting for more surgical strikes, rather than mass carnage.

Shouting came from somewhere off to their left, and Liv spun, her wand raised. One of the Iravatan soldiers must have gotten to the wyrms, for she could see them now, the light of the burning tents reflecting off their dark scales, their heads raised. “Blood and shadows,” Liv cursed. It might have been overly optimistic, but she’d hoped they could finish things before the great serpents had even roused themselves.

With a sweep of her wand and an incantation, Liv sent a wave of frozen crystals sweeping out into the wyrms, which were now slowly slithering down off their rocks toward the raiding party’s left flank. Without waiting to see the effect of her father’s favorite spell, she dashed forward, wincing at the pain in her left leg, clicked the third button on her wand, and drew it across the dry ground in between her and the oncoming wyrms. A wall of adamant ice began to rise, piling up rapidly until it was taller than she was.

Liv turned to run back over to where Arjun, Julianne and Sidonie waited on the great slab of rock, but then she heard a great cracking sound behind her. Without an instant’s hesitation, she threw herself to the side. Dust and pebbles sprayed out at her, and the ground shook with a massive impact as the head of a wyrm crashed directly into the place she’d been just an instant before. She scrambled backward on her rear, and when the wyrm raised its head, she pointed her wand directly at the monster’s eye and clicked the first button.

A needle thin shard of adamant ice shot out, piercing the eyeball and popping it like a blister. The wyrm hissed and reared back, then shot a spray of venom directly at Liv. With only a panicked whisper of intent, Liv raised a mana-shield to catch the venom: the glowing blue plane lasted just long enough for the venom to drip to the ground, and then flickered out of existence. Liv looked up to the clouds: an ice shard hadn’t been enough to penetrate the monster’s brain and kill it. Perhaps a lightning bolt -

Suddenly, the wyrm’s head wrenched to one side, and its long, muscular neck shook. Liv pushed herself further back, and kept her wand raised, uncertain what was happening. Then, the serpent’s bones tore their way out of its scales, sending chunks of meat and sprays of blood in every direction. The wyrm fell to the ground, half draped across the break in Liv’s wall of ice, and did not move again. A sheet of lightning fell just beyond the wall, and if it didn’t kill the other two wyrms, it at least held them back. Liv scrambled to her feet, limping now, and dragged herself back over to where Arjun, Julianne and Sidonie waited on the rock.

“Thanks,” Liv gasped, accepting a hand up from Arjun.

“I’ve healed you enough recently,” her friend grumbled. “I’ve got no desire to try to pull that venom out of you.” He rested a hand on her shoulder, muttered an incantation, and sent a wave of warmth into Liv’s leg. The pain eased, and she was able to stand up straight again.

☙

By the time the initial assault was over, they’d only taken a few wounds: Wren had been burned, sure enough, and had her scalp split open by an arrow she hadn’t seen coming, as well. Matthew’s armor had seen him through with nothing more than bruises and two small cuts, one on his leg and one on the back of his hand. Rose had taken an arrow to her thigh, broken the shaft off, and kept fighting.

Arjun saw to the worst of the injuries while Triss, Liv and Julianne climbed around Liv’s wall to make certain all three of the wyrms were actually dead, and that they wouldn’t be leaving an enemy behind them. It wasn’t easy to tell which had landed the killing blow - Liv’s ice crystals, or Julianne’s lightning. Both of the remaining wyrm corpses - and the Elden soldier who’d made his way over to rouse the beasts - were pierced and shredded by ice, as well as scorched black and burned by Julianne’s spell. In the end, Triss poked each corpse with a sword, and even ran her blade through the Elden man’s heart just to be certain, and then the women rejoined the rest of the raiding party.

What Triss had done for the soldier near the wyrms, her brother Bliant took upon himself for the rest of the enemy. He walked among the wounded and the corpses, and wherever he found a member of House Iravata still alive, he ended their pain with a single thrust.

“We haven’t seen any of the Antrian war machines yet,” Sidonie pointed out, when the nine had gathered together again.

“As near I could tell, they were all being kept docked in those creepy caskets,” Wren pointed out. “And it takes time to wake them up.”

“Which means that either we killed every single one of our enemies,” Julianne said, “and we don’t have to worry about it; or, we missed someone, and those machines could be waking up as we speak. We’re going to split up. Half of us to take out the leader, and the other half to make sure those war machines aren’t activated.”

“You need me to show the way to Calevis,” Wren said.

“I’m going after him with you,” Liv told her.

“And I’m not letting you out of my sight,” Rose spoke up. “You always come back wounded when I do.”

“Speak for yourself,” Liv teased her, nodding at the dark haired girl’s bandaged leg.

“Take Arjun, then,” Sidonie proposed. “Out of everyone here, I’ve likely studied the lore on Vædic artifacts in the most detail. I might be able to help disable the war machines, or their cradles.”

“Good luck,” Julianne said. “We meet back here when we’re finished. Matthew, Bliant, Triss. With me and Sidonie.” Showing no hesitation whatsoever, the duchess turned and stalked off into the great, hulking mass of buildings and machinery that made up the Foundry rift.

“She would have made such a good culling mage,” Rose remarked, watching the older woman go.

“She’d have made a better queen. Better than Benedict is a king, at any rate,” Liv said. “Alright, Wren. Show us where their leader is.”

“Follow me.” Wren slinked forward, low to the ground, her enchanted boots just as soundless as the pair she’d first brought from Varuna. Liv was a bit jealous: she hadn’t had a chance to go hunting the entire time she’d been at Coral Bay, and she felt like she was getting rusty.

They walked in a tight group of four, with Wren in the front, followed by Rose, who held her sword out before her as she came, and then Liv and Arjun together bringing up the rear. Above and around them, steam hissed intermittently from vents; gears cranked and ground; lights flashed and then dimmed. Finally, they came to a building - one that Liv would never have picked out on her own.

“This one,” Wren said, lowering her voice. “The door opened for them, but it might not for us.”

“If it doesn’t, I’ll make it,” Rose said, her jaw set. “I’ve got enough mana left for that, at least.”

And yet, they need not have worried. Whatever enchantments guided the door, they weren’t subtle enough to tell friend from foe. The door hissed open, allowing the four inside.

There, just as Wren had described, an Elden man with emerald green eyes dangled from a multitude of mechanical arms, each of which was busily moving about him, turning bolts and fastening plates of armor into place on his new legs. He looked, Liv thought, as if someone had bolted Karis’ bottom half onto a living man.

“Wren Wind Dancer,” Calevis said, his voice echoing about the building. “I hear you gave Manfred quite the beating. The Great Mother was very angry about his failure at the reef - he even lost Karis.”

“He didn’t lose the Antrian,” Liv said, stepping forward into the dim light of the machines. “I killed him.”

Calevis looked down at Liv, narrowing his eyes. “House Syvä?” he asked.

Liv nodded. “My name is Livara Tär Valtteri kæn Syvä,” she said, raising her wand. “And your wyrms killed my grandfather.”

“Auris finally did die of the venom, then, did he?” Calevis grinned. “How gratifying. I worried the old man might have survived.” His Authority flickered out, and Liv grunted under its pressure - but it didn’t seem to be directed at her. Instead, the mechanical arms lowered Calevis to the floor and withdrew.

“It will be even sweeter, then,” the green-eyed Eld whispered, “when your father learns I’ve taken not only the past away, but the future of your house, as well.”