Blades of Sorcery Read online

  Fire, flames, energy, and magic licked around the hobbling stranger as if he was the source of all that made light in the world, and he responded by standing taller than she had seen him before. Then she noticed something else unique about him. It was as if just by emanating that sort of magic, he absorbed it and threw it back out tenfold.

  Sara was astonished, but Karn was not.

  “Huh, well, I guess it makes sense now,” he said while staring at the person who had caught all of their attention.

  “What does?” Sara asked as she glanced around, flummoxed. Even the enemy Kades had halted their advance to turn around and watch the fight between one of their orcs and, apparently, a mage on the opposite side—Sara’s side.

  This mage had transfixed every single person within viewing distance, and Sara could see why. As the hobbling individual’s power grew around him, magic flowed into the center of them all and was released in waves, and it felt as if they were all being battered by ever-increasing power. Power that was all-consuming and mesmerizing. It wasn’t tangible, and that was the only mercy. It was like drowning in your own mind, as you couldn’t look away even if you wanted, and you would be forced to watch yourself slowly be consumed by what was coming. Sara felt like she was standing in the midst of a tidal pool that was gradually building into a tsunami, and even she was frightened—as a mage whose primary focus was the physical manifestation of her gift, which gave her the ability to be stronger, faster, and, in general, a better fighter than most, this was different than anything she had ever experienced before. She was out of her depth, and mages whose gifts extended to the ephemeral aspects of magic and manipulation of the currents around them—even they had to be in awe of the gifts they all felt here.

  Then they had no more time for awe, as the hobbling mage finally completed his journey away from the bright magic he had been building higher and higher, and Sara realized his intent hadn’t just been to distract his opponent, the orc. No, instead he had managed to position himself directly on a nexus point of power, one of the many that Sara knew the empire had scattered throughout the land for times of need. They were wells of magic used to restore the abundance of stored gifts to the people to the land if all else failed. Well, this mage was managing to tap into something only the empress herself should have been able to unlock. Sara didn’t know how, and there was no one to question it but her and the few mages who could also see and understand what he was doing.

  Besides, she knew that at the moment they had bigger problems. Because not only had she noticed more orcs shambling out of the still open portal, but she also saw her hobbling mage’s aura clearly now.

  It was a toss-up at the moment which was worse but she decided the latter for now if only because the new orc contingent seemed as dazed and blinded by the light show as their compatriots.

  And she suddenly knew what the hobbling mage was. But she couldn’t say it. That was okay—she didn’t have to, because Karn finally answered her.

  “You get it now, don’t you? The orc fears him because of what he is—someone who controls nature itself,” Karn said in a hushed, reverent tone.

  “And what’s that?” she asked while leveling her sword out at her side.

  She had no chance of using her blade, though. It was a physical weapon in a battle that would clearly call upon magical gifts beyond her knowledge. Even the orc looked afraid.

  “What is he?” Sara demanded of Karn with a voice that was ever-increasing in aggression. Not fear. Never fear.

  Finally, he answered, “A mage who can call upon the very fires of the earth.”

  Sara shook her head. That didn’t give her an explanation. An explanation of how to defeat him, how to hobble him in the same way his physical body hobbled his movements. Yes, she knew he was an ally, but her instincts were telling her something different. Something was off here. His power alone was too great, and with the magic he was drawing from the nexus increasing with every breath they took, she worried that whatever he unleashed next would evaporate them all.

  But she couldn’t do anything about it. The only thing she could do was brace herself and hope they were all ready for it. Whatever it was.

  Hunkering down as best she could while keeping her weapons ready, Sara grimaced and waited.

  She had never allowed herself to be taken by surprise while in battle, and she wasn’t going to start doing so now. He was dangerous, and as he released his gift in a wave they never saw coming, she had one depressing thought: If this is what the imperial army has been fighting with for the past half-year, what horrors must the Kades have back in their own fields?

  Even watching it slowly evolve hadn’t prepared her for his mastery. It wasn’t just flames and fire responding to his call. But the creatures she’d only heard about in legend—creatures built of fire and flame that lived deep within the earth where only molten rivers burned day-and-night. She watched them dance around their master with a giddy delight that couldn’t be more beautiful as they danced in the night and their skins shone with a brightness that rivaled the dome imprisoning them all in from above.

  “An inferni master,” she said with just as much awe in her voice as there was terror. It wasn’t just the creatures that he was controlling which made her tense. It was the fact that to even get down to the ecosystem in which the inferni lived, and survive the encounter himself, he would have to be a high-level adept in his field. Someone the likes of which she had never seen before. As long as he was in control of his powers, this was a good thing. But being a master didn’t always denote skill, just pure power.

  Sara could be a master battle mage if she tested for it, but she had no interest in subjecting herself to that battery of assault, and the crimes of her father prevented the daughter for being called forth to do so anyway. No one wanted a traitor’s girl ranked among the best in the empire. Not publicly, anyway. What she had done on the streets of Sandrin was her business, and she had the feeling that whatever she did on the fields of battle would be too.

  The fact that he was a master in his gift on top of being able to tap into the nexus of power didn’t bode well for the opposing side. Hell, he was supposedly on her side, and still she had an uneasy feeling about this. Too much power in one person, which could make him almost unstoppable. As for his natural gifts’ inclination to call forth inferni, she didn’t think one had been called forth in more than two decades, but, well it was working. The orcs were all trembling, frozen where they stood in terror, but especially the original orc he had focused on.

  Stepping back, Sara looked for the inferni master’s superior officer, the man commanding him to build and build on his gifts, but she didn’t see one. The only thing she knew about him was that he wasn’t one of her group, so he had to be one of mercenaries from elsewhere. Judging by his garments, he was one of the Red Lion mercenaries working for Captain Kansid. She’d just feel a lot better if his captain had taken the field with him as well.

  Sara had to wonder where the rest of the mercenaries were, anyway. They should have been by their sides in this encampment field as soon as the warning call went out and the shield wall went down for the first time. Now it was too late, they were fighting an invasion force alone and to top it off the other side could potentially get reinforcements through their portals that she couldn’t. It sucked.

  Staring around at the numbers she could count on her side Sara saw no one other than the soldiers and mercenaries who had been caught off guard with her. The ones who hadn’t died, anyway.

  They were half-garbed, fully sloshed with too much to drink, and woefully unprepared against the Kades. She and her team had only managed to hold back the Kades by the skin of their teeth because of the rock formation that had sheltered them at first. Now it was too late to back down, and the field was too tense with magic to move forward.

  This didn’t look right. It didn’t feel right, and suddenly Sara knew that her label for this mage was ineffectual. It wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t right, either—it
didn’t encompass all that this mage was and would become.

  No, he wasn’t just an inferni master.

  He was something more. Much more.

  She just didn’t want to find out what it was. Deciding that she’d had enough of show-and-tell, Sara stepped forward, glaring in defiance at the bright energy that was building around them fast and hard, like they stood in the eye of a typhoon about to hit them all.

  As the air around her grew warm and she found herself battered by waves of magic and heat, she realized she needed to make a stand.

  Raising her sword up in front of her, edge out, Sara Fairchild said a prayer to the gods above and below, and she walked forward.

  3

  The only thought going through her head as she walked was that maybe if she killed that damned orc, he’d drop the light show and they could all go back to doing what they had before. Fighting like real warriors, face-to-face and blade against blade. This much magic made her hackles rise, and she didn’t have to say she didn’t like it—it showed on every inch of her face.

  “What are you doing?” Karn shouted at her.

  “Ending this!” she said as she loped forward, trying to gain an advantage on the orc, even as the enemy stared up, stupefied at the light show.

  Sara looked around in disgust. They were like sheep, blind and vulnerable. As she raised her blade to kill off an idiot, she halted as she got a good look in his eyes. It wasn’t rapt attention that met her gaze—it was glazed-over adoration.

  “What is going on?” Sara shouted.

  She looked back to Karn for an answer, only to realize he hadn’t actually left his post. She stared hard at him, but he had the same look on his face that the others did. Hesitantly, Sara paced over and waved a hand in his face. Only when she got close enough to touch him did he snap out of it.

  As if she had snuck up on him out of nowhere, he jumped back with a yelp and brought his pole up in a defensive mode. That was enough for Sara to realize this was no ordinary magical wave. It was affecting them all. Everyone was in some kind of mental haze. It was spooky.

  She too had felt it, but for some reason it hadn’t incapacitated her.

  “Where’d you come from?” Karn shouted at the same time as she spoke.

  “Karn, his magic is more than what we can see!” she yelled desperately.

  “What?” the burly warrior snapped.

  “His magic,” she growled. “The light, the flames, the fire. It’s just…just… I don’t know; it’s like a distraction. Everyone here is entranced.”

  Karn looked around hesitantly, trying to verify what she said. She could tell from the look in his eyes that he saw it was true: no one was moving, no one was advancing. They were all just watching.

  “You’re not. I’m not,” he said stubbornly after a moment.

  “You were,” she said flatly.

  “But you weren’t,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Looks like not.”

  “But how is that even possible?” he asked—flabbergasted. “An inferni master does one thing and one thing only, controls those blasted fire demons, so what gives?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It doesn’t track with what I learned in my admittedly brief lessons on magical theories either. He shouldn’t have mind-bending magic.”

  Karn growled. “This just keeps getting worse and worse.”

  “Well, at least he can’t turn it on all of us,” Sara Fairchild said while feeling slightly guilty she was saying anything at all. He was technically on her side after all, a member of the imperial armed forces through-and-through, she was sure of it.

  “Maybe that has something to do with your magic,” he said. “Can’t distract a battle mage on the field of battle.”

  Sara had the feeling he was right, though she wasn’t going to say so. Talking about her gifts and what it meant for her future made her uncomfortable. Not to mention the fact that she wasn’t actively drawing on her well of magic at all. She only used it when absolutely necessary, and she was in mortal peril. Fighting a few clumsy warriors didn’t count as mortal peril. The dragons that were hunkered down placidly as sheep in a field, however, were another matter—that was, if she got close enough.

  She eyed them closely as a potential course of action developed in spurts in her mind.

  As she carefully crafted her path forward, she heard Karn barely holding back a loud yawn.

  “Tired?” Sara asked out of the corner of her mouth.

  “Suddenly I can barely keep my eyes open,” he groused. “This sucks.”

  Sara shook her head as she asked, “Does it help if I’m nearby?”

  “Only so much,” he admitted. “I can feel this…this slumber overcoming me even as I stand here. It’s hard to fight it.”

  “Then don’t,” Sara said. “Conserve your energy because when you’re released, so will all the others.”

  Karn was silent for a moment.

  “And while I’m sleeping my life away where will you be troublemaker?” he asked.

  Sara shrugged artlessly. “I could tell you but it’s only the faintest of ideas yet.”

  Karn asked, “Does it involve you using this spell or whatever to slaughter everyone in sight and get us the hell out of here?”

  “Maybe,” Sara said.

  “Do it,” he said decisively as he gripped his pole weapon lengthwise. “I’ll just wait here for this fugue to dissipate and pick up the pieces.”

  “You do that,” Sara muttered as she moved off, eyes already set on her closest prey like a hunter on the prowl.

  Extending her mental awareness around her for individuals coming up behind her, which she really didn’t need to do, she found Karn settled back into his stance: weapons ready and mind blank, in the fugue state. Just as before. Just as all of those surrounding them were.

  Satisfied that he was fine and she’d found her mission, she tucked that thought away and went to work.

  But she didn’t have as long as she thought. She’d only been able to slice the throats of seven unlucky fighters before the mage who had had garnered all their attention let loose his creation. She knew that magic, after all, could only be gathered for so long before it was loosed, but she’d at least been hoping to kill a good even dozen before he released the wolf he’d been holding back to start its prowl.

  As it was, Sara didn’t have time to do much more than raise her sword ineffectually as she watched the magic blast forth from the man she had improperly labeled inferni master. She now knew he was so much more.

  This time, his magic wasn’t gentle. It was the gentle vapor that wrapped you in a mindless fog, empty of reasoning. No, this one had impact. She felt the wave of magic as it gripped her and then physically tossed her aside like a rag doll in the winds. Her body went one way, her sword went the other. It was drop it or watch the blade pierce Reben, who went flying past her. Sara chose to save her comrade, losing her weapon in the process.

  As she flew through the air, Sara also saw something curious. The dragons. The dragons were fleeing as they rose into the sky on stunted but working wings. Then she hit the packed earth and could think of nothing but the stunning pain in her temple and the darkness threatening to overtake her.

  When she rose again, black spots in her eyes, wondering briefly if she had actually lost consciousness, she looked around in dismay. The silence that had hit them all after that blast of magic leveled the playing field had her ears ringing as she struggled to get any sense of perception from where she lay on the ground. Everyone had been felled. Some permanently.

  As she stood up on shaky feet and tried to unclog her ears so that she could hear, she felt wetness. Uncomprehending, Sara dipped her fingertips in her ears and brought them around to her face. Blood, bright red, glistened on her fingertips, and Sara looked around in awe.

  Everyone’s ears were bleeding, probably shattered by the sheer force of the blast.

  Karn was grimacing as his nose gushed more blood, and Sara was absurdly gra
teful she wasn’t hurt worse.

  “Where’s the hobbled mage?” she cried out as she looked around at the devastation.

  Marx walked over to her with a grim shake of his head. “Gone. He was a sacrifice.”

  Suddenly, Sara understood. She understood why she and her team had fought alone against the wave of Kade invaders, only a lone Red Lion regiment and their brave, hobbled mage by her side.

  “We all were,” she said as her fist tightened by her side.

  Another strike against her, their, broken leadership. But one that couldn’t be settled now.

  All the orcs were gone. Pulverized.

  All the dragons were gone. The lucky ones had taken to the air and flown away. The few who hadn’t, who had stayed loyal to their leaders, had been pulverized as well.

  That left a devastated human leadership to face those left behind.

  Moments, but what felt like hours later, there were groans all around as human warriors on both sides stood and assessed their standing.

  Some of the Kades directed especially hateful glares at Sara. She glared right back and assumed that perhaps they hadn’t been as oblivious as Karn to the goings-on around them. Which was an interesting distinction, but nothing she could really wrap her head around right now.

  Suffice it to say, they knew that she had killed several of their people when they’d been most vulnerable, and she couldn’t care less. War was war. They’d had the advantage before, and now they didn’t.

  The playing field was a little more even, though she was still hoping for reinforcements from the surrounding camp that would make her side overwhelming. She wasn’t going to waste time wondering where they were when it was quite clear she was about to be neck-deep in another pitched battle, but that didn’t make the resentment simmering under the surface of her mind any easier to bear.