Guild Mage: Apprentice

According to Wren, the Falkenrath troops were two days out from the wall at the time Liv killed Genevieve Arundell. Matthew and Triss came from Whitehill the day after, and they'd had to take a carriage rather than horses. Mistress Trafford accompanied them, because Triss was sick once again.

Liv had met them at the edge of the encamped northern army, with Baron Corbett, her great-uncle Eilis, Vivek Sharma, and Bryn Grenfell, whose face was still marked with scabbed-over cuts left by the talons of raptors. To her immense discomfort, Sohvis represented Mountain Home in Keri's place. The bandage wrapped around the Elden man's temple seemed a constant reminder that the world held no justice: if it had, Sohvis would have been in the healer's tents, while Keri stood at her side. Ghveris, Wren and Kaija trailed just behind her. While they'd quietly worked out a schedule so that one of them would be with her at all times, her adopted brother's arrival was apparently of sufficient significance that it required all three of her self-appointed protectors to be present. Rose had been left behind to repair the wall as best she could.

Matthew and Triss both wore their armor and weapons, which Liv approved of - though not their helms, which she did not. She didn't think there were any more of the late Baron Erskine's men in the mountains that reared up above the pass. In fact, she'd sent her own scouts to scour the bare rock faces and crumbling trails, like mountain goats, to flush out anyone they could find. But as Henry's death had taught her, you could never be certain there wasn't an assassin waiting for their moment to kill you.

"Duke Matthew. Duchess Beatrice." Liv lowered herself in a perfect curtsy, and the motion brought a sudden, stabbing memory of Julianne, who'd taught her exactly how much respect was due to any noble of higher rank, based on their particular position. Bryn, on her left, dipped lower, while Sidonie's father, as a baron, gave a bow that was higher by several degrees. Though neither Vivek Sharma nor Sohvis bowed, they did incline their heads in respect.

"None of that," Matthew said. His voice was hoarse from weeping, and his eyes bloodshot, with shadows beneath them. He caught Liv up with his one good arm, and Triss came in from the other side. For a long moment, the three of them stood close together, and Liv leaned the side of her helm against her sister-in-law's head.

"I'm so sorry, Matthew," she said, after a moment. "I should never have left them. I was too far away, but if I'd been there -"

"What someone else did isn't your fault, Liv," Triss said. She looked far more pale than Liv was comfortable with, and the faintest sickly-sweet scent of vomit clung to her, only partially hidden by the perfume she'd obviously used to hide it. Liv guessed that the carriage had had to stop along the way to the pass - perhaps several times.

But it was one thing for Triss to say it; her parents weren't the ones who'd been killed. Liv found Matthew's eyes, and it was his expression that she searched for any hint of blame, both dreading and expecting it.

"You got the bitch who did it?" he asked, instead.

"I killed Genevieve Arundell," Liv told him. "Wren took care of Galleron Erskine."

"Opened his neck and then threw him off the top of the mountain," Wren called, from behind Liv. "When the scouts found his body, they had to identify him by his armor. His head had broken open like a melon on the rocks."

"Good," Matthew said. "Good. Show me the rest?"

Liv nodded and took a step back, leaving the embrace. Kaija stepped forward and handed her a long, thin bundle of cloth. "Sidonie was the one who recovered this, after your mother dropped it," she explained. Carefully, she unwrapped the stormwand, carved from the bone of a dead god, and extended it to Matthew.

He opened his mouth, as if to protest, but Triss elbowed him. Matthew simply nodded, took both the wand and the cloth in his remaining hand, and passed it to his wife. "We'll deal with that later," he said. "The wounded first, and then the prisoners."

"This way, then," Vivek Sharma said. The eastern priest led them to the healing tents, which were overflowing with the wounded and recovering. The twenty healers who'd made the journey by waystone from Lendh ka Dakruim had been working in shifts, along with the northern midwives, with rest only to sleep and eat, since the first bombardment of the wall. Arjun had been with them so much that Liv had hardly seen him since the end of the fighting, and even Sidonie and most of the Coral Bay trained mages had lent their assistance now they were no longer needed on the wall. The healers who had come with the Elden forces joined the efforts, and the chirurgeons brought by both the Corbetts and the Grenfells, but even with every trained hand, there were less than a hundred to care for many times that number of dead.

Liv knew; she'd had the tallies in hand that very morning.

She walked with Matthew among the wounded, watching him take time to speak with the men and women who lay on field cots. He offered thanks to one, a joke to a second, and words of encouragement to a third, and every one of them addressed him by the title 'your grace.'

Where Liv passed, on the other hand, whispers of 'archmagia' followed. She fought the urge to correct the wounded soldiers: she wasn't an archmage, and she knew it. The mere fact of killing one in battle didn't grant the rank, and the depth of her own inadequacy was clear from her failure to cast an archmage spell.

Still, the mistaken praise of the soldiers might still have been easier to bare than the ones who murmured a different title. Whether they'd learned it from Ghveris, or if it had manifested spontaneously, she didn't know, but the reverence with which it was uttered made her skin crawl.

"Lady of Winter," an Elden woman with the deep blue hair of House Däivi murmured, reaching her fingers out as if the merest brush of her skin against Liv's armor might bring some sort of blessing, or salvation. She'd lost an eye to the birds of house Sherard, Liv could see, and the empty socket was packed with linen.

"Shh. Sleep," Liv said, and leaned down to kiss the woman on her forehead. "Æn'Ceiēs." Her mana flowed out like a lullaby, like a mother rocking her child to sleep, and the wounded soldier closed her eyes. In sleep, the pain of her wound fell away from her face, making her look much younger.

"Her name is Aura," Liv's great-uncle said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "And she has two children waiting for her at home."

"I'm glad she'll be returning to them." Liv straightened her back, and moved to catch up with Matthew and Triss.

When they'd finished at the tents, they moved to the second floor of the Sign of the Terrapin, where three rooms had been set aside for the recovery of patients that Liv didn't trust to the tents with the rest. Ghveris, Wren and Kaija took up a station at the bottom of the stairs, while Bryn, Baron Corbett, and Vivek Sharma waited at a table near the hearth.

Miina was nearly ready to be on her feet; in fact, it was only Liv's order that had kept her in bed for the day. Her throat was still wrapped in bandages, and required daily cleaning, but it was, according to Arjun, healing nicely. She had a pot of hot tea by her bedside, and a sheaf of papers, along with a quill pen and an ink bottle.

"I can't believe I let you pawn this all off on me," Miina complained, her voice still hoarse, when Liv, Eilis, Matthew and Triss poked their heads into the room.

Liv grinned. "You wanted something to keep you busy. Managed to get the final numbers together?" she asked.

"I've cross referenced the count of the dead with the roll call of who we have missing from the acting commanders of each unit," Miina said, and paused to take a sip of her tea so that she could speak more easily. "Five hundred and seventy-two dead, as of this morning, with six hundred and seven wounded to some degree or other. I expect the latter number to continue to go down, while the former goes up, over the next few days - though not by much. The worst are either already dead, or going to recover. For the most part."

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"And the enemy?" Matthew asked.

Miina let out a sigh. "That's a lot harder to figure out. It took a day for most of the snow to melt, and we're still waiting on some of the blocks of ice to thaw out so we can count how many bodies are inside."

Liv winced at that, but she'd been the one to do it, and there was no hiding from that.

"What makes it even more difficult is that the crown levies broke when the storm hit," Miina continued. "They scattered south into Courland, and we have no idea how many of those who ran lived or died. The captured crown commanders have given us numbers of their house troops, and this new model army Benedict built, but none of them bothered making a roll of names for their levies. And there were over sixteen-hundred levied men, from all across the south. I doubt we'll ever have an accurate count of just how many of them died here."

"We'll have to keep a close watch for banditry," Matthew observed. "A lot of them are so far from home they won't even know how to get back - especially if waystones were used to move them in the first place. When they start to get hungry, they'll be raiding farms."

"So keeping all that in mind," Miina continued. "We know they brought just about thirty-one hundred soldiers, all told. We've confirmed about twelve-hundred and thirty dead. There's at least another thousand wounded, but - again - we have to assume a lot of those still able to walk might have fled. I think a lot of shallow graves are going to be dug about a day or two's walk from the pass."

"That's a lot of people who will never make it home to their families," Triss observed.

"And a lot less hands to sow fields or bring in crops," Matthew added. "If Lucania isn't careful, there are going to be regions with a shortage of food. Thank you, Lady Miina. For both your courage in battle, and what you're doing here."

They visited Keri next, leaving Liv's great-uncle to sit with his daughter for a while.

"So what actually happened to him?" Matthew asked, looking down at the Elden warrior from his bedside.

Liv, for her part, slipped into the chair next to the head of his bed, and brushed a lock of his long hair back away from his face. "Arjun says that the dowager queen used the word of blood to create a clot in his blood," she explained. "It blocked the flow of blood to his brain - which is why he lost control of his body and collapsed. Arjun was able to break the clot down and restore the blood flow, but - we don't know what his recovery will look like. He might -" She had to swallow, so that she could continue speaking. "He might not be able to move right. As soon as we're done here, I want to get him to the waystone." And from there, up to the ring, Liv thought to herself, but she didn't say it out loud.

They left Keri to sleep, and then the three of them entered the final room.

Master Grenfell lay propped up on a bank of pillows. Where his skin was visible, strange patterned burns were vividly marked. They crawled along his forearms like the roots of some horrid tree, and up his neck toward his temples, as well. Even beneath the white hair on his chest, revealed by the loose linen robe he wore, Liv could mark the burns - and from her past experience of Luc, she knew they would all leave scars.

"Matthew," Kazimir Grenfell mumbled, and his ashen lips curled into a genuine smile. "It's good to see you, boy."

"I hear you threw yourself headfirst into a bolt of lightning," Matthew joked. Someone who knew him less well might have thought his good humor unforced, but Liv could tell how shaken he was by the state of their old teacher.

"They tell me my heart stopped," Grenfell said. "I can't say I remember any of it."

"Kaija came back for him once she'd gotten Bryn down from the wall," Liv explained. "She nearly didn't get to him in time, from what I understand, but our friends from Lendh ka Dakruim saved his life."

"I'm grateful," Matthew said. "And you, old man. Get a good rest. When we go back to Whitehill, there's quite a few students waiting for you." He reached down to clasp the old mage's hand in his own.

Grenfell nodded, patted Matthew's hand, and then leaned back into his pillows and closed his eyes.

☙

The Crown prisoners had, at Liv's command, been placed in a stockade.

There were surprisingly few, though if Miira's numbers were accurate, that fact of it made a good deal more sense. Perhaps four hundred men and women were lightly wounded enough to be entrusted to the guards she'd set, rather than the chirurgeons who'd accompanied them north. Most were knights or crown soldiers, with a smattering of surviving barons, guild mages, and younger sons and daughters of the nobility. The only levies who hadn't fled had already been corpses, or too wounded to walk.

The enemy medical tents Liv had largely left to their own devices. Without healers from Lend ka Dakruim, the contingent supplied by the Order of Chirurgeons was horribly overworked. There had been a request, the evening of the surrender, for Liv to allow the college-trained mages in the crown force to leave the stockade and assist the healers, which she had denied without a second thought. She could hardly think of anyone more dangerous she could allow to walk around freely, other than Lord Commander Bennet Howe himself.

As a result, Liv expected that a great deal more of the southern wounded would perish, compared to the forces of the northern alliance. She couldn't find it in herself to feel particularly badly about it, however, given they'd been the ones to invade her home.

The stockade had been grown by House Keria soldiers at Liv's command, and it consisted of enormous hedges, thick and impenetrable, bristling with wickedly sharp thorns. Ramparts had been constructed from the remains of the crown siege engines and ladders, and a rotating mixture of Elden troops and human crossbowmen patrolled constantly. They had orders to shoot at the slightest hint of an attempted escape.

Matthew, Baron Corbett and Bryn climbed the ladder with Liv and Kaija, leaving Vivek Sharma, Triss and Ghveris below. Wren took to the wind in her bat form, spiraling above the stockade to keep an eye on the surroundings.

"Any trouble?" Liv asked.

Sir Hardwin of Ashford, who had command for the shift, shook his head. "None, Archmagia. They've been quiet as spring lambs. Your Grace." He bowed to Matthew.

Liv stood at the edge of the rampart next to her adopted brother, looking down at the prisoners within. They stood in groups, talking, or perhaps walked about slowly. Many had simply thrown themselves on the cold ground where they could find space, to sit or to seize a few hours of sleep.

"You didn't give them tents?" Matthew asked her.

"I want the guards to be able to see them at all times," Liv said. "I don't trust them. Anyway, it's spring now. The days are getting warmer. That's Bennet Howe." She pointed down to a knot of men, including not only Howe, but Merek Sherard, Baron Seton, and a few knights she couldn't put names to.

Matthew squinted down, and then shook his head. "I thought I'd recognize him from somewhere," he admitted. "But I suppose somehow our paths never quite crossed. He never went to Coral Bay?"

Liv shook her head. "Apparently not. Anyway, I'm glad to leave them all for you to deal with, now. There's a lot to be decided, and I've been putting everything but the immediate questions off until you got here."

"Don't be so quick to put it all on me," Matthew said, with a frown. He glanced at the soldiers to either side, and raised his voice. "Give my sister and I a moment alone." The Whitehill men backed away immediately, but to Liv's intense discomfort the Eld looked to her for confirmation before obeying the order.

Only once Bryn Grenfell and Sidonie's father had withdrawn did Matthew finally speak. "It means more to me than I can say that you waited for me," he began. "That you greeted me as Duke of Whitehill the moment I arrived. But I'm not actually the oldest child, Liv."

Liv couldn't help but think that she hadn't heard Matthew correctly. "I'm only your parents' adopted daughter. They only ever meant me to be a sort of insurance, in case you were killed before you could have a child."

"Whatever their intent, inheritance in Lucania is based on absolute birth order," Matthew pointed out. "And you were already twelve years old when I was born."

"And you're the natural born child, not the adopted one," Liv pushed back. "Everyone's always looked to you as the heir, Matthew."

"Perhaps they shouldn't have," he said. "I'm a cripple, Liv, and a lackluster mage at best. While you just broke an army in front of half the kingdom, and killed an archmage in single combat."

"That was luck more than anything," Liv protested. "I tried to cast a spell I shouldn't have, and it literally blew up in my face. If Genevieve had been wearing armor -"

"But she wasn't," Matthew interrupted her. "And as far as they're all concerned -" he wove a hand around to indicate the Elden and human soldiers guarding the wall - "you're Archmagia Livara."

"I haven't earned that title."

"But even more important," Matthew pressed on, "You're unwed, and you can still have a child, Liv. An heir. Which, evidently, my wife and I are not going to be able to do." He turned away from the prisoners below, and faced her directly.

"I want you to seriously consider the idea that you should be Duchess of Whitehill," Matthew told her.