Guild Mage: Apprentice

Wren shifted nervously atop the saddle of the horse she'd been lent by the Falkenraths. For most of her long life, in the jungles and mountains of Varuna, she'd gotten where she needed to go by flying. While she'd had occasion to ride since, during her travels with Liv, she doubted it would ever be her preferred method for covering ground.

The dowager queen and her party of Sherard soldiers had left Falcon's Roost a day before the duke's army, and the old woman had openly announced her plan to have fresh horses waiting along the route. Wren could only imagine that she'd be pushing those mounts to the brink of exhaustion in order to get to the battle at the pass before it was decided.

The Falkenraths, on the other hand, marched with admirable order and discipline, but so far as Wren was concerned after the first day, not nearly enough speed. Duke Thomas called a halt with plenty of light left in the sky to make camp, and ordered his men to dig latrines, ditch and palisade an enclosure, and build cook-fires for a good meal.

Wren managed to wait until she'd cleaned her bowl of pottage - the thick stew that Thomas and Thurston Falkenrath ate, side by side with their knights. It was stuffed full of diced vegetables, including carrots, parsnips, onions, turnips, leeks, and beans, along with oats and barley. The only concession to luxury the duke had made was to add a liberal helping of red wine to the stew pot over his own fire. While her leg bounced impatiently, and Tephania perched at her side, the duke scraped a hunk of bread around the inside of his bowl, to sop up the last remnants of the stew, and then set to eating that, as well.

Finally, Wren couldn't stand it anymore. "She's only widening her lead," Wren blurted out. "At this rate, there's no way we can make it to the pass before Millicent joins up with the crown forces. The battle could be over before we even get there." Without her to keep an eye out, Liv was liable to catch a dagger in the kidney when she wasn't paying attention. Ghveris was a good bodyguard for when Wren couldn't be present, but - she forced away the sudden image of the massive war-machine's armored plating cracked open. He had his own vulnerabilities, as their fights against the other Antrians had shown. Without any magic of his own, and having lost his ability to shapeshift, Ghveris had to rely on predictable and inflexible enchantments. And even those would only last until his mana stone power source was exhausted.

"There was never any chance we could catch up to a small group of riders, with remounts waiting," Thomas Falkenrath explained, in between bites of his stew-soaked bread. "It would only exhaust the army to try."

"We can send a picked group of riders ahead when we get close enough to the pass," Thurston explained, but even to that, the duke shook his head.

"It would be a mistake," Falkenrath explained. "Do you know what the single most common error is, among those with magic?"

Wren didn't particularly care, at the moment; she'd much rather he finished explaining his intentions to her. But in order to keep the duke talking, she shook her head. "What?"

"Reliance on personal power. The idea that, with your magic alone, you can turn the tide of a battle," Thomas explained. "When the truth is that only perhaps one in a hundred mages will ever actually be capable of that. One in two hundred, perhaps - or even less. Most words of power aren't suited to it in the first place. Luc is one of the few that is, which is why the royal family has made such an effort to horde it close. But even with that word, it's only a generational talent with the skill and mana capacity to use its full potential."

"I was at Coral Bay when Jurian turned back Ractia's soldiers almost single handedly," Wren protested.

"Ah, but there is the word - almost," Duke Thomas pointed out. Having finished his bread, he passed his bowl off to one of the soldiers hovering about. "And from what I understand, the late archmage didn't fight an army there, did he? A few magic-users, a handful of mercenaries and Eld, a wyrm or two? Do you truly think he could have made a difference against two thousand soldiers, Mistress Wren? Three thousand?"

"I think he would have found a way." Wren only became aware that she was clenching her fists when the pain of her nails biting into her skin grew too sharp to ignore.

"Perhaps he would have." Falkenrath shrugged. "But then, he was an archmage - and we only briefly had three of those at once, in the entire kingdom. I, on the other hand, am much more cognizant of my limits. Could I charge ahead, with a picked group of men? Leave my son here, perhaps, or Sir Elias in command, and reach the rear of the crown army in time to join the battle? Perhaps. But we would be exhausted, and after I'd killed a few dozen soldiers with my spells, I believe we would find ourselves quite vulnerable. And in all my years, one thing I have learned is that it is never wise to make oneself vulnerable. To separate a leader from their troops is to invite assassination."

"So you don't plan to fight at all?" Wren exclaimed. "After everything I've told you - after the owl? Why are you marching, then?"

"Wren -" Tephania reached over to take her hand, but Wren shrugged the other woman off, refusing to look away from Duke Falkenrath's eyes.

"You've brought me proof that the dowager queen is a heretic, worshipping the old gods who were long ago overthrown by the Trinity," Falkenrath explained. "And by Mirriam, of course, and all her followers. That is sufficient cause for me to arrest anyone, within my lands, and question them. Given her political power, I would be a fool to even make that attempt without an army at my back. Make no mistake, Mistress Wind Dancer, for a duke to charge the king's mother with a crime is no small thing. I cannot afford to give up the slightest advantage in the attempt."

"And in the meantime, my friends will live or die without your help," Wren growled. She looked to Thurston. "Your friend, too. What are you going to do if they've already killed Matthew by the time we get there?"

"Offer a prayer at his funeral, with the knowledge that I supported him in every way that I possibly could," Thurston said. But he looked away from Wren's eyes, and lowered his gaze to the cook fire.

"And you?" Wren spun around to face Tephania, who shrunk back from her glare.

"As I said before, there is no possible way for this army to reach the battle before the dowager queen does," Thomas Falkenrath repeated. "But you could, Mistress Wind Dancer."

"All by myself." Wren had to force herself not to grind her teeth in frustration. "I don't even have magic - and you just got done telling me how one person can't make a difference."

Falkenrath shrugged. "This is the best I can offer you, Mistress Wren." He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. One of the knights who waited close at hand for his orders passed forward a wine-skin, and the duke accepted it, then handed it over to Wren. "Quail blood," he explained. "Shot by our outriders to add a bit of flavor to the stew. I had the cooks save it for you."

Wren snatched the wineskin and stood up. "Fine," she said. All of her patience was gone. "I only hope there's still something to do by the time you arrive." She slung the strap of the wineskin over her shoulder, leaned over to gather up her quiver and bow, and secured them as well. Then, she allowed her human body to collapse into a singularity of blood, spread her wings, and beat up into the night sky.

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It was only at sunrise of her second day of near-constant flight that Wren was able to admit to herself that her mission had not been a complete failure.

While she'd had her heart set upon the Falkenrath army taking the crown forces in the rear, it was better to have removed them from the conflict entirely, than that they should have come through the waystone at Bald Peak and taken the northern forces by surprise. Two hundred and fifty soldiers, reinforcements that Bennet Howe would be counting on and not receive was one step forward along the path to victory, even if she'd been hoping for a dead sprint. As to the promise of what might come after the battle, Wren didn't put much stock in it.

If Whitehill stood by the time Duke Falkenrath arrived, perhaps he would seek to arrest the dowager queen. But if the wall had fallen, and Whitehill was besieged, she suspected that her revelation would be studiously buried.

The only thing she could think of now was to push herself onward, and pray to whatever gods remained to hear that she might arrive in time to do something.

Foothills rose beneath Wren's wings as the miles fell away behind her, and the mountains reared ahead. They seemed impossibly high, taller than the same peaks had ever looked from within the shelter of the Aspen Valley. She'd made this trip once before, from Courland to Whitehill, though that time she'd hired herself a place with a train of drovers and their wagons, so that she didn't have to brave the snow alone. Intellectually, she knew that even the lowest point of the valley was high above the lowlands which made up southern Lucania, but it was another thing entirely to be confronted by the enormity of it.

This time, she did not follow the road along a series of switchbacks up through the foothills, but instead made straight for the pass, which cut between two cliffs like a giant had taken an axe to the stone. Wren caught thermals where she could, letting them lift her up higher and higher, so that she didn't further exhaust herself fighting for altitude.

She could smell the battle before she could see it: the stench of smoke, burned flesh, blood, sweat, piss, shit and vomit - not to mention that strange, sharp humming taste to the air that came with the dark storm clouds which had gathered above the pass. The flickers of light which lit them in irregular rhythm forced Wren to descend, but she could only trust in luck that none of the falling bolts of lightning were aimed at her. Surely no one would notice a single, small bat in all this?

As she banked down over the battle toward the wall at the pass, Wren could clearly see just how many more soldiers the crown army had - it was twice the size, if she had to guess. Siege engines, both atop the wall and behind crown lines, lobbed missiles back and forth, while archers and crossbowmen on both sides launched volley after volley through the intervening air.

There was magic, too: easier to mark from the northern forces on the wall, where beams of brilliant light regularly stabbed down into the Lucanian army. But the sheer variety of spells, most concentrated in a vicious battle atop the wall itself, spoke to the fact that both sides had brought plenty of mages. Flame guttered, fragments of metal spun through the air, thorned-vines lifted a soldier into the air and crushed him. It was an assault on the senses, and it nearly overwhelmed Wren with confusion.

The staccato bark of Ghveris' shoulder-mounted barrels roared, and Wren latched onto the familiar sound, dipping her wings to bank down toward the center of the battle on the wall. There he was! The enormous armor of the war machine, looming above any other soldier, gleamed beneath every flash of lightning from overhead. As Wren flew closer, she saw the war-machine bring his enchanted blade down, shattering the glowing blue mana-shield of an enemy mage.

Now that she'd found one of her friends, Wren cast about for the rest. There was Keri and a knot of Eld, facing off against the dowager queen. She nearly flung herself into that battle, but then she caught sight of Liv, surrounded by snowflakes billowing in a pocket of arctic air, half a dozen swords swirling around her, confronting Genevieve Arundell.

Nearby, Arjun knelt over Baron Henry's body, which he'd dragged out of that odd wheeled chair and away from the fighting. From the look of the crossbow bolt sticking out of the old man's eye socket, Wren doubted there was anything even such a talented healer could do, but -

Some primal part of her brain screamed at her to move.

A crossbow bolt howled down from the northwestern cliff faces, spinning through the air on a direct path toward Liv's face.

Wren had changed before she'd even had time to think about what she was doing, an enchanted dagger in each hand, and she cut the bolt out of the air before collapsing back into blood and spreading her wings again. Where had it come from? She couldn't see anyone atop the rock faces that loomed over the battle, but someone had to be there. And if an assassin had waited this long to fire on Henry and Liv, they weren't going to stop after a single missed shot.

She let a pulse of sound out, and waited for it to bounce off the mountains and return to her. There. Just like the raider camp, and with that thought Wren knew exactly who was trying to kill her friend. She beat her wings to climb up, up, to where the barest scrub clung to the top of the rock, a sort of ugly knob of granite and sand, reared up to a dizzying height.

The moment Wren came barrelling through the outer limit of Galleron Erskine's spell, she saw him. The Baron of the Strand was lying on his belly along the rock, looking down at the wall. Half a dozen soldiers in jack of plate guarded him in a loose semi-circle, and he had not one but three crossbows. As she came in, he was handing the one he'd just fired off to one of his men, and accepting another that was already loaded and wound.

Wren shifted in midair, crashing down onto the assassin with the full weight of her body, and sent the loaded crossbow flying out of his grasp. It skittered across the rock face, while she and Erskine rolled end over end, out of the circle of his guards, and she caught a glimpse of it going over the edge. Her quiver and bow came free, and Wren didn't have the slightest idea where they ended up. She had just long enough to imagine the crossbow falling on some unsuspecting soldier, far below, and then Erskine had rolled atop her, his hands clenched around her wrists in an attempt to pin her.

"You," Erskine growled. "The bodyguard. I should have known." For some reason - perhaps to get a better shot with the crossbow - he wasn't wearing his helm, and the scar on his face stood out white against the flush of his anger.

"Me," Wren spat back, and kneed him between the legs, then dissolved back into blood. She coalesced behind him, placing Erskine between her and his guards, and drew her knives again, but Erskine staggered to his feet in the same motion that he drew a rapier, its steel blade etched with Vædic sigils. The moment the blade was in his hand, he blurred, accelerating at inhuman speeds as he lunged for Wren's heart.

She clicked her boot heels together, activating the enchantment on the boots she'd been given by Tej Mishra, after the trip to Lendh ka Dakruim. The world slowed around Wren, save for Galleron Erskine, mid-lunge.

If she hadn't spent so many mornings practicing with Jurian, it would have killed her. For all the years Wren had trained to be a hunter, until those sparring sessions with the old archmage, she'd never truly devoted her time to becoming a better fighter. He'd drilled footwork into her, the proper response to a dozen different weapons - one of them being the rapier.

Wren rotated her right hand, laying the blade of that dagger against her forearm, and used it to parry the lunge, pushing Erskine's sword aside, and then she was inside his guard. With her left dagger held in a reverse grip, she stabbed him three times in the neck before he could recover.

The baron of the strand choked on his own blood, falling onto the rock face as he clutched at his neck, rapier forgotten. Wren blurred away from him as he dropped, and slit the neck of every one of his guards, in the midst of their rush to surround her, before the magic of her boots came to an end.

When it was done, she crouched at his side again. Galleron Erskine's eyes were wide and panicked as the life drained out of him.

"No sense putting this to waste," Wren said, and leaned down to press her mouth to where gouts of blood pumped out of his neck, in time to the beating of the man's heart. She drank her fill, and somewhere along the way Erskine stopped breathing.

Wren stood, wiped a forearm across her mouth to clean the blood away, and then kicked the man's corpse off the edge of the rock face. Then, she retrieved her longbow and quiver, and nocked an arrow to the string. She stood so close to the drop-off it made her dizzy, drew back her arm, and picked off a crown soldier climbing one of the siege ladders toward the fight between Liv and Genevieve.

There were plenty of targets.