They are workers no less than the mundanes in Rustiford, he thought. Accountants and bootmakers, smiths and cooks. They have families like any other Mar. Only their education makes them better.
But he could not take mundanes to fight this battle. We will need more weards before this is through. He knew this.
The first encounter surprised the gobbels immensely. They walked, unsuspecting, among the dozens of traps. Power flung many aside and explosions of Energy sent more flying. The gobbels used their wands indiscriminately, but Sven had moved his army to the east, and there was no one for the gobbels to fight. The gobbel leaders gathered, and the Drakes’ progress slowed to a crawl.
Sven grinned from his vantage point in a tree and teleported to his army.
“In the morning, we strike,” he told his blues. “Like a spear. Jab, and pull back. We do not want to get caught among them. Make certain everyone understands.”
The next day, the casualties for the Mar were higher than Sven would have liked. About one in five of his wizards did not pull back after their first attack, pushing their significant magical advantage into the fray. The gobbels reverted to their own tactics, though. Any group of them knew how to take down one green or auburn wizard. Almost fifty Mar ended up dead, although a vast amount of Drakes were also dead.
My people will learn, Sven thought that night. This was a lesson they needed.
They performed the same tricks, again and again, for spans, leading the gobbels away from population centers and deeper into the less civilized Skrem swamps. On rice fields and in murky marshes, among trees and open sky, Sven’s wizards learned how to fight pitched magic battles. But most interesting was that the gobbels were using their wands less and less, and from this, Sven suspected their wizard allies had abandoned them, and he knew his forces would win the battle even as his cough worsened.
* * *
The morning of the battle of Skrem, more than half a year after the Blosin wands had first been used, Sven hacked up mucus into a pot in the corner of his rooms in Skrem Palus. He had been awake the past two nights with what remained of his thousand, setting traps in the path of the gobbels.
More than ten thousand gobbels dead. Almost four thousand wizards have died. Countless, countless mundanes and slaves have passed away. He fought back the tears, his hands scrubbing his dirty, haggard, unshaven face. He fought back self-pity, and drew his resolve. Volund will move against me openly, and I will be able to remove Flasten’s vote. All Mar will reach their potential.
Is this the best way to achieve that goal?
It sounded too much like Katla’s words to him. What we lose in lives, we make up in time. Time is a finite resource. Lives are replaceable. He hardened himself to the argument. I am uniting Marrishland as only the Mardux, the Guardian, can.
Scratching his chin, he left to join his vassal duxes where the army waited. Flasten’s twenty thousand were still three days north. Domus’ twenty thousand were more than a month away and still halted for the day. The Mardux scanned the ranks of the ten thousand in a wide semi-circle. Flasten’s thousand had been incorporated a long time ago.
I saved a thousand of my enemy’s men. We must watch them in case they turn.
Sometimes, since the gobbels had invaded, he wondered who the real enemy was. Was it Flasten, who opposed him in everything he did and stood in the way of the greater good of the Mar, or was it the Drakes, who slaughtered Mar mercilessly?
The gobbels straggled to a line just before noon, many with limbs missing. The traps had worked. They looked tired and defeated already, but the chiefs had pressed them. Sven’s final victory would be tremendous.
The wands rose.
The wizards of the first rank erected a wall of Power and Elements to block the magic of the wands. Flames and bolts of power battered the barrier, but it held back the first wave. The second came and the third and the fourth. The wall began to collapse in places, forcing the second rank of wizards to send waves of flame to drive back the press of gobbel wand-wielders. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air as the fire consumed the enemies’ first ranks. The wands could not keep pace with the wizards waiting for the Drakes.
The gobbel infantry surged into the breaches, spears penetrating the flimsy defenses still protecting the Mar there. The waves of fire broke off one by one as the wizards fell back. For a moment, it seemed the magocrats would fall as Piljerka Palus had.
Sven ran up and down the line, burning out the larger clumps of gobbels with streams of Energy. The officers followed his example, relieving their faltering greens and auburns long enough for the minor magocrats to regroup and heal themselves.
A voice somewhere among the invading army cried out over the din. Others answered it. The gobbel infantry took a few last thrusts at their enemies before falling back. The Mar made short work of those gobbels who had been cut off in the fray before sending bursts of fire to lick the heels of the retreating force.
“Hold your ground,” Sven shouted, and the officers took up the call. “They are not yet finished fighting.”
The Mar rotated their wounded to the back to heal themselves, while fresh troops moved forward into defensive positions, confident and dangerous even though only one wizard in a hundred wielded a weapon.
Across the field of burned wild rice and corpses, the Drakes lined up again, this time in groups of tens and twenties. The groups were mixed, with some wielding spears and others holding a wand in each hand. With a shout from their leader, the gobbels charged.
The Mar held steady until their enemies were nearly in range before erecting a new wall of Power and Elements. The gobbels raised their wands, but no flames licked the barrier between wizards and Drakes. Their spearmen pushed to the front, howling.
Elements wands, Sven thought.
“Brace for melee! Attack weards, gather fire.”
Most of the Mar obeyed the order as it went down the line. Those who hesitated were soon skewered on gobbel spears. The others overcame the Elements wands and cauterized the gobbel infantry. Sven hurled flames against one clump of gobbels after another, shouting at the lines to hold.
The Drakes succumbed to the onslaught of fire and power. Those that survived beat a hasty retreat as the wand-wielders gathered in a line for another assault.
Sven smiled grimly, fully aware of what would come next. The Drakes shouted battle cries and surged forward.
“No walls!” Sven shouted. “Counter the wands themselves. Back ranks, ready fire.”
The gobbels drew close, jumping over the dead and dying in their haste, sprays of water and burned wild rice racing ahead of them.
“Counters, now!”
The wizards looked solemn but did not stir. The wind tugged at their cloaks. The gobbels came to a halt several yards away from the line of Mar and raised the wands. Nothing happened. Sven thought he noticed more than a few wizards smile in amusement a moment before he spoke.
“And burn them.”
The gobbels recognized their predicament too late to organize an effective retreat. Their wands now no more valuable than sticks, the wand-wielders vanished in an ocean of fiery waves. They tried to retreat, but walls of Power enclosed them, drowning them in flame.
When the Mar attack ended and the wind blew away some of the smoke, no sign of the gobbel army remained. Most were dead, and those who had held back on the far side of the field had no doubt fled back into the trap-infested swamps between here and the Dead Swamps. Not all would perish, but they would never assail Marrishland again.
This phase of the campaign was over.
Sven thanked his wizards and teleported to Domus Palus as the cheers rose across the fields. There wasn’t much time.
The worst is yet to come.
* * *
“How did you know?” The Dux of Skrem shivered in rage as he and Sven stood next to the Mardux’s master reconnaissance stone, a mammoth device supported by a half-dozen yellows that showed Marrishland almost to Flasten Palus.
&nbs
p; Skrem Palus, in the same day as its victory over the Drakes, had fallen to Volund’s army. Arriving half a day late, the Dux of Flasten’s force, led by Ragnar and Vigfus, attacked the victorious city from three sides. Sven had ordered a full withdrawal from the city, mostly back to Domus Palus, and Flasten found only a token force of wizards waiting.
“Volund has abandoned the laws,” Sven said, coughing. He spat something thick and bitter to one side. “He arranged for the wands for the Drakes. He took his time to come to the aid of Marrishland.”
“He has been taking slaves for years.” Borya’s voice grated in rage.
Sven nodded. Let the dux build his own rage. From him and his fellow duxes, I need a vote. He turned to one of the yellows, a priest of Marrish.
“Go to the Domus army. Tell them to attack Flasten Palus. Any weard and any supporter of a weard is to be arrested if possible. Volund has forfeit his duxy.”
My army should reach Flasten Palus two spans ahead of the Flasten army reaching Domus Palus, assuming Volund does not order Ragnar to turn the men back. Would he realize what was happening soon enough?
Sven dismissed Borya and shuffled up to the Chair, taking a seat heavily. His throat filled with mucus and his nose clogged. It was a simple cold, but it could turn to Seruvus’ Breath if he wasn’t careful. So Erika had said. He didn’t have time for that.
She had offered to shave him. The look he had given her could have reduced a gobbel to ash.
Why should anyone else shave me except me? Can I get Seruvus’ Breath from shaving? It was a mark of his anger that he had completely forgotten to shave. As his hand brushed his jaw, his darkened eyes widened a little in surprise. This is three days worth of growth.
A tiny force of a hundred wizards had entered the Protectorates from the Duxy of Flasten three days ago. To make me split my army? But he had known that would happen. He could trace in his mind the path the wizards would take through the Protectorates. Einar was there, and that gave Sven some time.
Pushing himself to his feet, he stooped over to cough up some mucus. As he straightened into a slouch, the door opened, and Eda Stormgul entered.
“Mardux,” the brown-eyed woman said with a small salute. “A man has just arrived from the Protectorates. He seeks an audience with you.”
The Protectorates? Sven sat back down. It was hard to sit up straight. “Show him in.”
The man who entered was unfamiliar to Sven. That he was a mundane was obvious by his black cloak, his unshaven face and his smell. His hair was thick and curly and tied back with a leather thong. His irises looked like splotches of mud against the whites of his eyes.
“Who are you?” Sven asked.
The man bowed awkwardly and scratched his head vigorously, a smile playing on his lips. “I’ve no doubt you’ll remem’er me after I’ve spoken but two words to you, Weard Takraf.”
Voices meant more to Sven than faces, and his eyes widened. “Bui Beglin? Of Tortz?”
“I’m that, Mardux. One of the fifty mem’ers of the ‘vacu’tion team. Twenty of us still live.”
“You stayed in the Protectorates with the refugees?”
Bui shook his head. “We wen’ north, crossed into the Fens of Reur an’ waited for this.”
“What have you waited for?”
“Re’emption, Mardux.” His voice grew hot. “An’ revenge on Volun’ for what happened in Tortz.”
“Brand Halfin taught you magic. He broke Bera’s Laws.”
“Volun’ broke the Laws, first an’ last. He took slaves before Bran’ came, an’ killed those who stayed with you.”
“The wizards will still kill you if they know you use magic.”
“We don’t use magic anymore. I swear by th’Oathbinder that’s true. The gods told us we could take revenge just as soon as we atoned, and we’ve done that.”
“You have given up the use of magic.”
“Yes.”
“There are only twenty of you.”
“Yes.”
“What can you hope to do against the dux? He has an army of twenty thousand wizards approaching Domus now.”
“Tactics, Mardux.”
“What kind of tactics gives mundanes any edge over wizards?”
“Guer tactics, Mardux.”
“You mean guerilla.”
“That’s what I said, guer. We bury ourselves i’the mud, an’ when they get close, we strangle them. We draw some away from the rest, an’ when they get close, we kill them.”
“If even one wizard finds you first, you are dead.”
“We know, Mardux. We just won’t be foun’.”
“What do you want me for?”
Here Bui seemed to get a little nervous. “We want a wizard to come with us to heal those who’ren’t careful.”
“You know we cannot bring people back from the dead.”
He shook his head. “Fraemauna protects us from Dinah’s Curse, but sometimes ‘saken worms get on us. An’ we’ve heard of reco’orzance ...”
“Reconnaissance,” Sven corrected.
“... An’ a wizard can help,” he finished with a hopeful smile.
Revenge. The Mar had fought battles against Drakes for as far back as history was spoken, but Mar fighting Mar was never spoken of. A good wizard duel was remembered for years, but Sven had read deeply into the histories in Domus Palus and only twice had come across pitched battles between Mar. The lessons learned from those fights had been severe as the Drakes took advantage of those towns’ exhaustion.
Revenge was out of character for a Mar. Like the excesses of his enemies, revenge only led to destruction. It blinded you, turned your power with anger. It kept you from being focused.
And Volund is seeking revenge on me. Bui had reminded Sven of that. He watched the mundane from Tortz, considered the man’s months-long trek to get here. His sacrifice, for leaving his others in the Protectorates. His bravery, for leading them to the Fens of Reur in the first place.
A wizard and twenty mundanes who know how to fight wizards. Can they be worked into the plan?
He knew they couldn’t.
“Bui, I will give you your wizard,” Sven said, turning his head and coughing.
The man beamed.
“In fact, I will send Weard Stormgul here and a priest of Marrish to teleport your men to us.”
“Why’d we want to come here?”
“Because in payment for a wizard, I am going to ask you to deal with a different enemy. You see, Dux Volund Feiglin is leading an army to attack Domus Palus. I am going to ask your men, after a few days of rest and good food,” he watched the man’s smile, “to sneak behind their camp’s lines and practice your tactics there.”
“Mardux, how can we thank you?”
“You just do what you want to do. I will take care of the rest.”
As Eda led Bui out, Sven rubbed his nose with his sleeve. And while you are here in Domus, you will be kept safe and out of the way. For the duration of this war, this band will be locked up, because I can’t afford to have anything happening outside of the plan.
He tried to stand up and fell back heavily into the chair. Confused, he tried to stand again, and this time made his feet. Light-headed, he took two steps and fell over. The last thing he saw before he passed out was Erika, running out of the shadows where she had been hiding, watching him, as she shouted for help.
Chapter 15
“Morutsen is the sap of the kalysut. It is a very sweet, golden liquid slightly thicker than water. It is moderately intoxicating — inhibiting reflexes and clouding thought much like alcohol. Sufficient consumption of morutsen leads to unconsciousness, but there is no known lethal dose. The tiniest sip of morutsen instantly arrests the ability to use magic for the next eight to twelve hours, although larger doses do not appear to extend this effect. For this reason, it is the shackle of choice when holding a wizard captive.”
— Nightfire Tradition,
Nightfire’s Herbology
“Give wands
to the gobbels of the Dead Swamps and provoke them into invasion? That was your plan?” Brack ranted. He had just returned from a meeting with the Delegates that clearly had not gone well. He was impatient, and worse, he was powerless. The Delegates insisted he drink some morutsen before he would meet them, in order to keep him from using his magic.
Katla said nothing. She hadn’t expected it to work, which was the point, but she couldn’t exactly tell him that. She wasn’t on Brack’s side. She wasn’t on the Delegates’ side. She wasn’t on Volund’s side. She had thrown her lot in with Sven’s vision for the Mar so completely that she was risking everything to achieve it. Hundreds of thousands might die. Thousands already had.
Brack paced irritably, leaning heavily on his cane. “This has complicated matters enormously. It is bad enough that Dux Feiglin is clearly taking advantage of the situation, but if the Mardux can prove Flasten’s involvement, he might convince Wasfal and Pidel to side with him in the conflict.”
It had taken her a year to figure out how to do that. Convincing the Council to give her brother free rein to violate Bera’s Unwritten Laws was an important part of her plan, but it would take a unanimous vote to do that. If Wasfal and Pidel sided with Sven, Flasten would be incredibly foolish to defy him.
“Neither Weard Wenigar nor Weard Stoltz were taken prisoner by the Mardux’s allies. Dux Feiglin’s son is safe in Flasten Palus,” she said.
“And Weard Stoltz?”
“I am not certain, but she is resourceful.”
“Resourceful enough to betray Weard Feiglin if he appears to be losing?”
Katla certainly hoped so, but she let Brack rant.
“She already switched sides once,” he said. “She owed allegiance to Mardux Beurtlin and the Duxy of Domus before Weard Takraf took the Chair.”
“Arnora knows what will happen if the Duxy of Flasten does not topple the Mardux. She knows the Mass will invade.” She probably doesn’t think it’s real any more than Brand did. “Besides, implication in this invasion works both ways. The Blosin wand is the Mardux’s invention, the application of an auburn magocrat trying to defend too much territory. He committed it to paper while he was at Nightfire’s Academy.”
Brack snorted a laugh. “Weard Takraf did not invent those wands. Farls have known the making of them for centuries. He could easily claim to have learned it from Weard Wost when he was at the Academy. I have heard Weard Takraf was one of his most beloved pupils, before he was forced to resign his post in disgrace.”