There was a lot to do that morning.
Gant had been up with his small troop at 0500 hours informally giving them a briefing.
He didn’t see why they shouldn’t know everything he did. They already had the most sensitive information any of
them currently possessed, and that was that Hirn was with them. In a few hours
they would be risking their lives in the school. He only intended sending two people to the castle with Jan and Sil.
Captain Alena was in charge there and he remembered her as an excellent commander.
His eyes allowed themselves a smile as he remembered her as an old love also, no need for makeup and corsets there of a morning,
he thought. If he’d not been exiled…but Gant was not Hirn. He had no sorrow in him as he recalled Alena, simply a
warm memory, and the stirring of a desire to see her again. Pulling himself from reverie he finished,
“and then we have the truly deep joy of explaining all this to about fifty mages in small groups. They will no
doubt be demonstrating varying levels of pomposity. Then after that we just have to take on impossible odds”.
He looked around the assembled soldiers. “ Any questions?”
“If we’re to train these mages in even basic defence with sword and knife, we’ll need an armoury Sir” one warrior
observed. She could see no point in it, but they might as well have something to train these people with.
“Good point. See to it. Go with Jan and Sil to do whatever they do to the portal and bring back some weapons
supplies. Speak to Captain Alena in private, I‘m sure she’ll have the authority to transfer some weapons here.
Steward Gerard will have briefed her by now. If not, and she chews your ears , tell her who sent you.
It may improve her mood.“
Unsurprisingly a question was raised about breakfast, when and what, and Gant pointed towards the wagons,
unwarded now, and set the soldier to preparing it.
“If that’s all…well you all have your tasks.”
Jan and Sil packed a bag of their equipment and by 0730 hours were journeying down the tunnel with their escort to
the castle. Gerard met them at the Guardhouse. A further troop of about forty soldiers were amassed on the
parade ground outside. Cal spied Captain Alena and made her request. Alena had been briefed already.
“Tell Gant its already arranged, and we’ll be joining him in a few hours with supplies of weapons and food and
drink. They wont have enough for all of us down there.”
Gant… She remembered two young twenty year old warriors, playing with love and winning the game.
She had suffered at his trial. Fate had been cruel where love had been kind.
She had been assigned to escort him to the portal when he was exiled.
The look of eternity between them as he disappeared had never left her.
If Gant was back, then perhaps the other injustices and slights for her people, the weapons warriors she saw
as “her people“, might be drawing to an end. She wanted to see Gant again.
She had no hopes of just picking up where they had left off. It had been too long.
She just wanted to see him again, and soon she would.
It took only a few minutes to render the portal in the courtroom useless to anyone without knowledge of the
altered codings, incoming or outgoing. Jan and Sil reported to Alena that they had finished.
“Something else” Sil handed over two of the devices used to detect the glamour spellings.
“I understand that you’re screening everyone that enters the castle? These will detect people using a glamour spelling.”
Jan took over and showed her how it worked.
“If the reading is here or over“, he pointed to a level on the tiny panel, “then its most likely to be one of their
people.” Alena nodded. She liked this “technology“.
“Just a list of names and locations for now, no need to risk any confrontation yet.” Sil explained that any other
action was likely to provoke action that they weren’t ready for, and that could warn the Order of their plans prematurely.
Alena understood fully. Gerard had the castle guard loyal to Terin. The Duke’s legion of about five hundred
soldiers was a different matter. At the moment they were doing whatever they did when they weren’t with the
Duke in a field fifteen miles East. They had been summoned back for the court hearing, but causing a fracas
before their loyalty was secured would cause needless casualties.
She had no intention of allowing warrior to fight warrior simply because of a timing issue.
“We already have a few people to check out with these” she said. “I’ll brief the guardroom and then we’ll head off
to the barracks. I’d like you and Jan to come along and show them how it works yourselves. It will be good
for some of my people to get a look at you early on. Morale.”
“Sure” said Jan, delighted. He enjoyed it when people admired the things he made.
When it was certain that the assigned guards knew what they were doing with the devices Alena led her forty
warriors down the tunnel to the barracks to join the small group already there. There was a buzz of excitement.
The troop were aware that they were part of special force, and had been informed despite orders to
the contrary that the legendary exile, Gant, was to be in charge. Morale was very high.
“Lets hope it stays that way when they know what’s expected of them” Alena thought to herself. She led the her
warriors through the tunnel and out of the cellar to the mess hall. She knew it well. Jan and Sil joined Terin,
Riani, Gant and Avin at a large table. Alena halted the soldiers and hoped her voice wouldn’t show the
joy she felt as she saw Gant stand to acknowledge them. The others also stood as a mark of respect to the
warriors, and that had pleased and moved her.
“Castle guard reporting as ordered Sir.” She saluted Gant.
He did an extraordinary thing.
He leapt across the table, turned to Alena and said loudly “Permission to kiss the Captain of the guard?”
“Granted.” she smiled, wondering how they would ever keep discipline now.
He kissed Alena full on the lips in front of everybody, then saluted her and yelled “At ease.”
The room was in uproar with laughter, but every eye was on Gant and when he opened his mouth to speak and the hall
hushed in anticipation to hear what this larger than life commander was about to say.
He introduced everyone at the table and then explained the general situation to them.
Expressions became serious as they began to understand what they were shortly to face.
Gant then asked Avin to step forward to explain how they were to deal with the rogue mages.
All eyes regarded him with awe. He did look the part , was Gant’s assessment.
Like some hero from a children’s tale with his flowing long blond hair and youthful features he stood there, head to foot
in light leather armour like a Fae avenger, both warrior and mage.
The Emerald green cloak and the sword hilt visible were good touches. “Impressive.” thought Gant.
Avin addressed them all with no preamble.
“There will be five of them, so we split up into groups of five. One of our party will be with each group to make
sure that if anything unexpected happens you have some mage support and counsel.
They may shielded, and we can deal with that to some extent with our technology, but if not” he drew his sword and
in the same slow motion action that Sil had used to take Hirn unawares demonstrated the speed at which a sword
would penetrate a shield.
”No faster than that. You’ll need to keep your nerve. The minute the mage turns it off, by pressing a button on a
device probably on his belt, you strike.”
He looked around to make sure everyone was clear.
“Whoever is not doing that is to watch for egg shaped missiles. If you see one, raise the alarm and don’t politely
wait for him to stop talking. One of us will deal with it.” he waited a few seconds and laboured a point.
“Do not pick it up. Its an explosive device that will detonate on contact.”
A few low whistles were heard.
Avin nodded, “Good, don’t be complacent, it will get you killed.”
“I’m not advocating murder here.” Avin didn’t want to kill anyone unless he had to. “Each of them will be given an
opportunity to surrender. They could have information that would be of use to us. We just know that it’s
unlikely that they will. Remember, you’re dealing with people who can keep up attack spellings for much longer
than any one of the mages you might have worked with before. Also they are very good at pretty speeches,
and will try to manipulate you. I doubt, looking at you, that any here will fall for it, but it needs to be said.”
He nodded to the gathering and retook his seat.
Gant addressed them again,
“Captain Alena will assign groups and we leave for the school in an hour. Lord Terin wants to say a few words to you.”
Terin stood and surveyed the expectant faces.
“ I didn’t want this” he said “but its come to me and I must deal with it. You’ve been given what intelligence
information we have. This man,” pointing to Gant, “didn’t kill my father Duke Harol, and this lady, he said
pointing to Riani, is innocent of the crimes she was accused of too. Tomorrow that will be a matter of public
record. I just want to make it very clear that I believe that now. This is no power game. I don’t care about
being Duke, but I wont stand by and watch our land laid open for pillage. If any one is not with us, they will
be given safe passage to join Arrin’s army when we‘ve completed this mission and detained peaceably here
until then. Speak now.”
As one the whole assembly stood up as one, chanting “Terin! Terin! Terin!”
Terin nodded his thanks, a little embarrassed and sat down. “My legs were shaking then” he whispered to Sil who was
sitting next to him. She looked at him nodding approval, “You did just fine.”
Gant called everyone to attention and Alena set about assigning groups. Once this was over with they could start
trying to train that lot up at the school to use weapons. Gant wasn’t looking forward to it but it had to be done.
Hopefully he would be too busy with a legion of warriors to brief to have much to do with it.
There was only one way to get to the school and none that would get them in unseen so they simply marched up there.
First stop the portal for Jan and Terin’s group, the rest to ensure the Sol was alright, and then
systematically marching through until all of them were accounted for. At the entrance hall Jan and Terin led
nine warriors to the Library housing the portal.
Jan pointed one of the devices unmasking multiple energy readings at Marg, the Librarian and shook his head at Terin,
confirming that she was not showing any sign of being what they were looking for.
Terin was pleased. He hadn’t wanted to have to break that news to Sol.
They took up position and Terin announced “there’s no cause for alarm. There’s a problem with the portal and we’re
here to fix it. Half a dozen mages raised their heads in horror, tut-tutting at him to be quiet, one pointing
at the sign telling him to be. Jan was smiling to himself. Training these people would be a fair
challenge for someone. He headed straight for the portal and began his work surrounded by Terin and the guards.
This was a little more difficult than the one at the castle, it was older and had some circuitry that
was pretty badly botched. Jan managed to get the desired result in about ten minutes. No trouble yet.
He signalled to Terin that the job was done. Terin approached Marg and asked who else was in the library, other than
the relics that they had already discounted.
Silently she pointed to an alcove on the right and signalled that one person was there.
The group marched towards the alcove and as they did so three simulations of wolf type creatures attacked them.
They were bigger and had more teeth, noted Terin. All swords were drawn and the pseudo beasts dispatched in a
few minutes. “Any one hurt?” asked Terin. No injuries. That was meant to scare them off probably.
Jan got a look at the mage that had sent them and flicked the identification beam over him to make sure.
A positive identification.
“You need to come with us” he said unpressured by the situation. “Hand over your belt and the goodies hanging off it please.”
“I have no fear of bandits” was the arrogant reply and Terin recognised the man from his the list. Ren.
“Ren, its me Lord Terin. Give this up, you’re a Strant man, you were born here you’re no traitor.”
The man was arrogance itself
“Lord Terin is it now? I thought I was looking at a failed mage and pathetic orphan with delusions of grandeur.”
“There’s no need to be nasty” said Jan pleasantly, “belt please.” and without waiting for him to cast another
spelling Jan, scalpel in hand had leapt on him and sliced the belt from him, rolling with it raised in his hand
like a winner in a fairground competition.
“Thanks” he said. “Care to drop the glamour so we can see how pretty you are?”
Ren did. He hoped his appearance would cause panic and give him time to cast another spelling.
He was young in the Order, and fairly inexperienced.
The wolves had cost too much energy and these people were not offering him any to replenish it.
He had of course no idea that some of those present had spent many hours guarding Hirn, and were not surprised by his appearance.
Hirn’s twenty years with the Order had him far excelling Ren in the area of disfigurement.
He risked a fire ball but Terin had it extinguished with a water spell almost immediately.
Aiming at the soldiers, he sent a wave blinding light “Close your eyes” yelled Jan.
Ren dashed for freedom through the mayhem but found himself at knife point, the other end of which was Marg,
looking very angry and ready to strike.
Jan noticed him reaching into a pocket and expected exactly what was thrown at him.
“Lots of birdies flying free” he said as he transported it to Rintar, inwardly thanking Avin for bullying him into
learning that spelling.
Ren needed to buy just a few more minutes to amass enough energy to cast again.
He dodged the knife and grabbed Marg’s wrist, forcing the knife from her hand.
Then he bent to pick it up and Marg brought her knee up firmly into his groin as he did so.
This caused him to loose her wrist. She brought both hands down as one fist onto the back of his head and grabbed her knife.
Terin knew she was Sol’s age now because her glamour had gone, devoured by Ren to build up his strength.
His eyes were a vermillion red as he began to construct another simulation.
Marg was quicker, and her blade into his side caused him to cease it to heal himself.
“Stop it “ Terin asked him again.
“Ren, you just attacked and got beaten by an old lady, no offence madam Librarian,” he said turning to her courteously.
The guards had recovered from the blinding spelling and one quickly ushered her to safety whilst the others surrounded him.
“Give up” said Jan “I’ve got your belt, and your little trinkets, you’ve nothing left.”
“You know nothing of honour.” Ren spat accusingly. He had his duty to the Order of the Elite.
One man’s life was unimportant.
Jan saw him put his hand into his pocket but no missile emerge.
He realised with a sudden and terrifying certainty that he was going to detonate one of the explosive devices there and then.
“Suicidal weirdo!” he yelled and not daring to try and disarm it with the untested gadget he’d made, he mustered all his strength.
“Big bird on the way” he shouted. The man had gone.
Jan collapsed on the floor in a heap. It had been much more than he thought he could achieve.
He was pleased with himself. “I’ll be alright “ he said to Terin,
“warn the others that they’re nuts as well as everything else that they are.”
Then fell into unconsciousness, his body drained of magical and physical energy by the spelling.
Terin left Marg tending to Jan and took two warriors with him to Sol’s study. The rest were to stay there and
explain matters to the mages who had watched it all with a combination of surprise and irritation at the
interruption to their studies. If he’d have seen any sign of them trying to help he’d have told them not to,
but the reflex just wasn’t there. A matter of weeks to put it there, that’s all they had.
Sol’s study was secure and now they had to find the other four. Gant was there outside the door with his group
when he arrived. Terin and Gant both wanted to find Sevaren, but they had all agreed to meet here. Avin arrived
looking round for Riani.
“No sign of them” he said, “Riani and Sil might have the four of them to deal with. They’re combing the Eastern side.”
Sil appeared moments later with her group. That meant that Riani’s group had four to deal with.
Avin wasn’t waiting for anyone to agree with him and headed off as soon as he saw Sil, followed by his warriors.
though no order had been given.
Gant cursed Avin under his breath for his haste and assigned Sil to stay at the Magemasters door with her group
and he and Terin with the rest of the warriors stormed after him.
Alena was with Riani.
He felt a definite understanding of his friends actions, but they had been rash all the same, and showed no thought
for the warriors under his command.
Riani had found Sevaren in one of the training rooms.
She felt his energy immediately and knew for certain what he was. She motioned for the guards to halt.
He was engaged in a mental concentration meditation.
“Hello Sevaren” she interrupted without apology. “You did me damage. Why?”
He looked up slowly. “Oh yes, that. Well, we were looking for someone else you see, and you were expendable, brave
enough and stupid enough to send to find them. Don’t take it personally.”
Alena signalled a “ready” command to the nine at her back. She knew the man was only telling Riani this because it
didn’t matter. He thought that he had them beaten. She scanned the room for clues as to what might make him think that.
From one of the adjoining rooms three others appeared, all smiling. Riani considered her options. The four men
moved to stand together.
“I’m ordered to give you all the opportunity to surrender.” she said eventually.
Sevaren smiled patiently. “Riani, I know exactly what little you can do, but if you insist I can let you practice
one last time to improve your “try harder” rating. Who knows? I might give you a “tried hard… but failed “ report.”
“I’ll take that as a “no surrender” then” she said unemotionally.
Without warning a huge wave of flame the width of the room headed towards them.
“Vacuum” she spelled. An invisible vortex headed towards Sevaren, drawing the flames into it as it crossed the floor.
Another came, a sea of them seemed to be building up.
“Vacuum” she spelled again until the bright red-orange glow of flames was no more.
Sevaren turned to his colleagues and nodded appreciatively, “greatly improved” he said.
Half a dozen serpents appeared like the ones that Sil had described, but fast moving towards her.
Soldiers stepped in front of her and cut them down easily.
Riani remained unflustered as a hail of metal shards rained down on them.
“Rust” she spelled, and they decayed and crumbled in the air. The rain of blades continued to be cast, and she
continued to cause their decay effortlessly. She and Alena’s group were left standing in a red dust, but no one was hurt.
She drew Mat’s sword and the group advanced upon the men.
They had dropped their glamour spellings, possibly to reuse the magic power, or possibly to make her think them weak.
It didn’t matter. She knew that her resources were nowhere near to being depleted.
A missile was hurled at her, she dispatched it silently to Rintar as Avin had taught her to do.
Alena was watching the men and saw nervous twitching of hands towards shields.
She pressed the button on her wristband and all but Sevaren’s shield failed to engage.
Those three tossed more explosive devices and Riani disappeared them simultaneously.
She was smiling, Sevaren smiled back from behind his amber shield.
“Is this perhaps a test?” he asked, obviously puzzled and definitely disconcerted.
The girl had been a useless student, fit for feeding upon and little else had been his assessment.
Now though, she seemed to possess endless resources of magical energy.
“Are you sent by Danid? Are you one of us? ” he asked uncertain of what to do next.
The group continued to advance on them, Riani heading straight for Sevaren.
His three companions looked nervous and more bombardment was suffered by the unfortunate rocks of Rintar.
Still Riani advanced, smiling her smile.
“Take their belts and touch nothing on them” Riani directed. The soldiers did so.
“I am ordered to invite you to surrender” Riani repeated, still advancing upon Sevaren.
“Weapons, simulate weapons and cut her down” shouted Sevaren
They tried, even though hopelessly outnumbered by Alena’s warriors.
It was an uneven and unwanted fight, but the fanatics wouldn’t give up. Soon they were lying dead.
Riani was still unscathed as were the rest of her group.
“You think that I may be from the Order of the Elite just because I know not to feed you and have more stamina than you?
I’m nothing special, you know that yourself from my school reports. Are you so arrogant that you can’t see that you
just aren’t as powerful as you thought you were?”
“You are rogue” he asserted, “but you’ve chosen to stay outside your true Order.
We can help you, give you far more power than you can imagine possible! You‘re making a mistake Riani. ”
his manipulations were falling on deaf ears.
The amber light of the shield flickered slightly and Alena, flirting with chance, tried the device again.
This time the shield remained off.
Riani stood in front of Sevaren shaking her head,
“No shield. You’re one of the few here that has weapons training Sevaren.
If you wont surrender, then I challenge you.”
She held Mat’s sword above her head in the manner of challenge.
Then without warning she sliced down with the sword at the belt around his waist and it clattered,
cut through, to the ground. Alena had it in her hand in a trice.
He was beaten. “I have no choice…" his voice was faltering, and he looked to be reaching for his sword to accept
her challenge, but instead fumbled in the pocket of his robe and looked at her with a gaze of disdain and victory.
“I know what you’ve done” she smiled sadly, and waved her hand. He was gone and the death he had triggered for all
of them with him. She hadn’t a hair out of place and looked as fresh as when she had stepped into the training room.
She had used only a fraction of her magic capacity.
She was grateful, but wondered how this had happened to her all the same.
Gant and Avin together with their warriors watched in stunned silence at the entrance to the training hall.
“Those women frighten even me!” said Gant, truly impressed by Alena and Riani and the calmness shown by the whole party.
Some of the warriors with them had never faced magic in battle before.
Riani, Alena and their group turned and saw them.
“We were coming to help” Avin said looking directly at Riani, his eyes full of pride and questions.
“But you didn’t need us to” added Gant, clasping Alena‘s hand in a warrior‘s hand clasp.
“Excellent job, and a useful demonstration for all of us spectators.”
He indicated to show that at least twenty soldiers had seen what they had done here.
But Riani was not pleased.
“He could have given evidence tomorrow. I wanted him to admit publicly to what he’d done to me, to you, to Terin
and his father. He won in that respect.”
Then she remembered the people who had stood with her and risked their lives, not knowing whether she could
prevail or not, but trusting her, and said to them.
“but that doesn’t alter the fact that I’m proud of every one of you for standing your ground out there.
Thank you all. She clasped Alena’s hand and said.
“You have some fine fighters here, warrior sister.”
“I think I speak for everyone when I say we had a fine magical warrior with us, mage sister.” Alena responded
grinning at her.
“Alright, alright don’t make a meal of it you two, just because your group got here first:” Gant interrupted,
“Alena please arrange to sweep this place again with that beeping box that tells you whose who, just to be certain.
Also I heard Jan was floored can. Pick him up on the way if he can still walk and then assemble everyone outside.
Its nearly three in the afternoon! We need to think about lunch.”
Alena smiled to herself “you always did” she thought and then set about complying with his request.