Chapter 23

Clouds hung low over the city of Tressen as the first light of morning brightened the eastern skies. It seemed an odd time for a lull in the fighting, just as visibility began to improve. However, it made more sense as company captains and noblemen were seen to be assessing their situations. Some made alarming discoveries at that time, finding themselves separated from compatriots and help by enemy forces. Others found happily that they had managed to gain some measure of safety, side by side with others of their own.

Siska, though, cared nothing for those things. Deep in her mind, she had made the decision that that plague that was the Theocracy would be swept from her island. Her island.

Thean and Salira had given up in trying to speak with her. If they received an answer at all, it was but a single word, else a curt phrase that answered nothing, in truth.

The formerly plump woman, newly sleek and athletic, craned her neck about to see soldiers emerging from side streets, attracted to the motion of mounted people. Siska's blue robes caught their eyes and they called out to the mentor they had discovered, most of them happily. Things were much easier if one were in a company that was bolstered with a wizard than they were if one found oneself facing an enemy company with one.

Siska did not even look back at them. "Rally them into some formation," she said, almost casually. "You know how to lead men, yes Thean?"

Thean nodded but said nothing. Somehow, she suspected the lovely apprentice, with her cold countenance, had noted that nod, even with her head turned the other way. She slipped off the horse and began cajoling men, issuing orders and passing out glares to those too slow in responding.

Within minutes, she had the men formed into a six-man wide column some thirty men deep. "Fewer than two hundreds," she said with a sigh to Siska when she had formed them and prepared the amalgam into a marching company.

Siska glanced back at the men. The men returned her look with haunted, nearly vacant stares. Many among them had seen friends and family cut down in the night by the Theocracy. They were still somewhat stunned by the ferocity of the assault upon their city and some were not even sure who it was that attacked them.

Some of the men wore the scaled leather of the guard, like Thean's own armor and they had migrated to the front of the columns, automatically more trusted and relied upon by the sergeant, for she knew their sort, if not the individuals.

Behind those men were some dressed in bright livery, household guard of nobles, and mercenaries, even more brightly clad, almost garishly so, with crimson and gold predominating their attire.

Lastly, forming the trailing half of the column were levies. Some had been recruited by nobles, she was sure, and others were townsfolk who had simply decided that they must take up arms to defend Tressen. In battle, they would unskilled, undisciplined, and unreliable. However, their numbers would serve at least to dissuade skirmishers attacking the column.

"Take heart," declared Siska in a voice that unnaturally resonated from the walls about them. Rocks slid from a broken wall beside her from the vibrations. "We shall drive our enemy before us and into the bay, I promise you this day if you promise me your loyalty."

She held up her slender hand, with the glowing staff gripped in her fist. A column of light shone upward, piercing the cloud over head and the wisps of white retreated from the illuminated column. It seemed as if she were struck by the one beam of sunlight able to filter through the clouds.

Salira's expression became very slightly disapproving of the tactic Siska was using to impress these men, effective as it was.

There was a ragged cheer, which started at the back of the column, among the levies, wearing leather jerkins and wielding iron-headed spears.

Then Siska stood in her stirrups, her horse dancing nervously. "Is that the extent of Tressen's spirit?" she asked in a voice that made the former loudness seem a whisper. Nearby, the wall collapsed in a plume of powder that did not touch her. "Thean, go find for me a boy among those men, one just of age to carry a spear."

Thean looked at her a heartbeat, but stepped toward the back of the formation and tugged a young man from among them by his sleeve. Plucked from anonymity by the fierce-looking guard sergeant, the lad tried to make himself invisible in plain sight.

"Stand tall, Delbaro," said Siska.

The boy gaped at her. "She knows my name," he murmured, still trying to fold himself inward.

Siska waved her hand toward the young man, her staff still glowing fitfully with pulsing light. She built structures in his mind and formed them tightly. "Open your mind to me, Delbaro, relax."

She felt him stiffen, but then the barriers slowly retreated from her touch. She could see thoughts flowing through him and she brushed against those. No she could not read his thoughts, but she could manipulate them.

What Siska sought, however was not control over the young man. A few moments searching found her what she looked for. She fixed the structure she had crafted onto that part of his mind and he flinched, feeling it take root. The built another and fixed it elsewhere when she found its proper home.

In less than a minute, it was done. No, he was no warrior still, but he would be deadly beyond reason. "Delbaro, stop this," she said and one of the spheres, which had been languidly orbiting about her, formed itself into a dart and lanced toward him like a slice of lightning.

His eyes grew wide, but he reacted, as she had hoped. His spear spun about in a blur of wood and iron and the wedge of silver was deflected, flying off in a direction that carried it out over the houses behind them. It spun about, though, and came at him again. Again, his spear slapped it off course, still blurring. This time, the wedge slowed after and then returned in a casual way to Siska again. "I have made you faster than mortal men, Delbaro," she said. "You shall be very difficult to lay weapon to and the black-armored bastards that the Theocracy has sent to harm us shall be unable to land wound upon your flesh."

Delbaro looked at her and a tiny smile formed on his face. "I can bless all of you thus, and make you into men who shall become heroes among the city, your names sung for years and none of you shall need know a lonely night." This last she added with a lascivious grin that made both Thean's and Salira's eyebrows rise.

"Siska a moment," said Salira.

"What?" asked Siska, her grin vanishing and her eyes turning to regard the wizard coolly.

Salira lowered her voice and leaned close. "What you did to that lad, is it wholly safe?"

"This is war, is anything wholly safe?" asked Siska. "There will be little harm from my touching and enhancing his mind."

"Little," murmured Salira. "I pray this is so."

"You worry too much, woman," said Siska, smiling reassuringly, though it gave the older wizard no reassurance.

"Those of you who wish not this boon, realize you will likely end up fighting anyway, without that benefit that Delbaro now enjoys. Else you shall become chattel for the Theocracy and live your lives as worse than even I was in my youth - slaves to masters who care nothing for you." She grimaced as she spoke those words, showing how she felt such a choice would taste upon the tongue.

"Still, those who wish it not, who distrust me, step away and go from here," she added.

The murmuring grew louder then a few of the militiamen took their leave, bowing, but also moving away from the formation. A couple of the mercenaries did as well, only without the bows and moving even more quickly.

Thean shook her head but said nothing. The remaining men stayed in place.

"Very good," said Siska with a sound of satisfaction in her voice. Still, she stood in the stirrups, overlooking the tiny army that Thean had mustered.

Salira stood back from the nimbus of glowing sparks that began forming about Siska in her mage-enhanced vision. The normal folk about them would see nothing of that, she knew. The spell formed into a massive latticework of nodes and points and conduits.

When it was complete, Siska let it settle upon the men. Salira recognized portions of it from when Siska had healed and enhanced her. "Those effects are permanent," she murmured to Thean.

Thean nodded, and stepped back to stand beside the slender wizard.

A few moments later, Siska dropped her arms and Salira saw the spell fade into the aether. The apprentice looked a little tired, but nothing like as tired as the wizard would have been just weaving a portion of that spell. "It is done," boomed Siska's voice, bringing them men to attentiveness again. They had felt little, if anything, of what had just been done to them.

"Let us drive this vermin from our shores and back into the sea whence they came," said Siska, dropping into the saddle and spinning her mount about. The horse seemed filled with sudden energy, too. Salira's gelding minced sideways with pent frustration, and tossed its mane. Had Siska spared the energy to enhance even the horses?

With a roar the two hundred men launched themselves down the narrow street behind Siska. Salira and Thean were pressed to keep themselves up beside the young woman with her hair streaming like a golden banner, marked with the near black of dried blood amid her tresses.

"Their magi," shouted Tornadin, running along the line of crossbowmen that he had assembled atop the palace's roof. He pointed toward a knot of brown-robed Theocracy magi, with their shaven heads amid the mass of marines hurling themselves against the barricades and makeshift walls that surrounded the palace.

Tarmal muttered a quick incantation, and a blue flash ran down the crossbows as they were leveled at their assigned targets.

Tornadin raised an eyebrow at the wizard and Tarmal said, "Some may penetrate their barriers now, though I'm not sure."

The nobleman nodded and waved his hand. "Loose!"

Fifty crossbows slapped loudly in unison and their bolts hummed into the morning-lit air.

They struck something invisible above the magi, a dome-shaped shimmer forming over the heads of the bald men. The first bolts rebounded from it, flying off in random directions with their killing energy spent.

Then one penetrated.

It was like a soap bubble bursting, the dome flashed brightly, leaving ghost images on the vision of those looking that way.

The tailing bolts tore into the magi, sending them flying from their mounts and scattering their writhing bodies across the cobbles. It did not kill all of them, or indeed, even unhorse all. Several still stood, spinning their horses about wildly in search of safety.

More arrows rained down upon them from palace windows and amid the barricade's defenders. Other captains had taken the chance to eliminate the deadly magi and those few who had held their saddles fell quickly, many sprouting multiple arrows and bolts before they collapsed.

On the barricade, defenders, now wearing shimmering scale armor of black and red stood beside the dull gray armored guardsmen who stood beside brightly dressed housemen. Tornadin's gold and crimson showed brightly amid those, though not the most brightly.

Here and there, a powder blue-robed figure moved up and down the line, reinforcing with magic what the flesh and steel could not hold. Spells rained into the marine formations and bolstered the defenders of Tressen where they were needed. It seemed that more than half the Blue Order stood amid the defenders, better than Phillip and Tarmal had hoped for.

That was not to say that all went well. Even as one flank held, the charge of a score of Templars, and a company of heavy cavalry had caused the other to break. Men tried to fill the gap and died in numbers. The Templars' armor shed spells like oilskin would rain. Wizards of the Order were hewn down by wickedly-shaped swords, their death screams louder and more pained than even death could account for.

The sorceresses in service to those Templars rode amongst them, causing no less havoc. Spells that were not spells weakened the minds and bodies of the defenders, confused them, even turned them upon one another, killing two men with one flick of their treacherous minds. A man leaped to attack one sorceress and turned aside at the last moment, driving his own blade into his chest and cursing himself as he fell.

Phillip launched another salvo of concussive spheres of mana into the templars. One fell from his mount, but stood again. He had lost his helmet and Phillip saw a broad smile form on that Templar's face. They were enjoying the battle.

A flash of flesh-color moved to his right and he found himself staring into emerald green eyes set in a beautiful face. His entire body stopped moving and he felt his will to fight drain. Cease this fighting and I shall bless you most warmly, she said into his mind as an enticing smile formed on her full lips.

Phillip's hand, still with a half formed spell in it, dropped to his side. Visions of pleasures flashed before his sight of things that this woman was to offer him. He could feel the visions growing darker as she delved deeper into his mind, touching and bringing forth fantasies rooted so deeply that they had never been even thought of openly. She would fulfill them all, if he so desired - nothing would be too debauched or degrading for her to willingly give him what he sought - if only he would help her to end the fighting and the killing.

The cuff to the back of his head sent him staggering and clutching at a soldier for support. Tatyana's voice came to his ears. "Tempt me, harridan!" she screamed and a finger-thin spear of mana shot from her outstretched hands to pierce the sorceress' chest, just between her perfectly-formed breasts.

A shame, that, he thought as a wound bloomed and blood splattered from it. A sort of impersonal rage filled him and he turned to strike lesser wizard, Tatyana, down for slaying that lovely creature that had offered him such bliss.

The inhuman cry of the sorceress tore his eyes from regarding Tatyana and distracted his spell casting. He glanced toward the dying beauty and beheld, instead, a twisted creature more demon than woman. Long talons jutted from twisted claws of hands and her flawless milky-fair skin had become leathery and drawn over sharp-angled bones.

The emerald eyes remained, still beautiful, but set into a face that would have set children to screaming on sight and made adults cross the street, with more of that leathery skin drawn over a skull so tightly that it could easily have simply been a skull painted to look like leather. Phillip forgot the immolation for Tatyana, though some anger, still confusingly impersonal, remained. The last syllables of his fiery spell left his lips as the creature launched itself at Tatyana.

It had almost reached her with those rending claws before it was hurled back into the mass of Templars and cavalrymen, still burning with mana and jetting long streamers of flame from its mouth and eyes.

He again spun on Tatyana, but she was already moving away from him. His anger vanished as suddenly as it had come. Why was he mad? At whom? His head felt as if it were only tacked to his shoulder with a single nail, and that nail was driven deep inside, causing a throbbing pain in the back of his mind.

The towering form of an armored Templar loomed over him, the knight's great sword held high and descending in a curve that would split the wizard from skull to groin.

He was still too dazed to do more than backpedal a bit, vainly, to avoid the blow.

The blow did not come, though. A long, wedge-headed spear poked over his shoulder and pierced the armpit of the Templar's interlinked armor. Garel stepped up beside the wizard as he thrust with the spear again, driving the point deeper into the torso of the Templar. The great sword dropped from powerful arms going limp and the young man found his spear yanked from his grasp by the tumbling body as it slid off its horse.

The horse itself, a warhorse, reared back to deal with these two annoyances before it. Its hooves bore spikes around the edges and had a long, curving blade to the back, like the spur of a rooster. Marek stepped in from Philip's other side, and with no weapon in hand leaped at the horse's flank, wrapping one muscular arm about the creature's neck and driving his fist into its' head like a mallet. The warhorse dropped to its feet, shaking its head violently, as if trying to clear its thoughts.

Marek punched it again and it staggered, nearly falling. More Tressenites poured past Phillip on both sides: spearmen and soldiers, even wizards. The Templars yielded the courtyard and retreated beyond the barricades beneath a hail of arrows from the palace.

Then it seemed over.

Mist smiled at the black-armored marine. "Unless you and your men would rather sate me, perhaps?" she asked, lifting a brow and letting one hip ride upward and angle toward him. Her Ghantian accent was pretty good, Skeen had to admit, and he was eminently grateful for it.

The soldier swallowed and looked toward his squadmates for support. "Um. No, mistress," he said, then looked toward Skeen, with his hands bound behind him and tied about the neck with a tether that Mist held.

"Trust me, sergeant," she said. "He will be in no condition to offer fight or flight when I have finished with him."

Skeen contrived to look downward forlornly and even whimpered a bit at those words, only to earn a sharp jerk of his makeshift leash. "Stop that!" snapped Mist, glaring at him. "I offer you pleasures the likes of which you've never known and you can do little but whine and fuss! The men of this island are like little girls."

That last she spared for the guard who chuckled. "Surely, you strong, true-hearted men can partake of the pleasures I offer?"

"Ah, yes, well, we have been ordered to guard this street, mistress. Else, yes, we - ah - yes, well, yes, we would happily provide for your needs and accept your blessing." His eyes moved around the little street, on the walls of the empty houses and even at the morning sky. Everywhere but at Mist's eyes.

"I understand, sergeant," she said, smiling sweetly. Mist tugged on the collar. "So may I pass to find a bit of privacy so I can tend my needs?"

"Of course," he said, stepping back and waving Mist and Skeen through. The expression he wore when he looked at Skeen seemed almost pitying. Almost - there was an edge of dark humor quirking the marine's lip upward on one side.

Mist guided him down the street until they reached a house and he murmured. "I know this house, it has a back door into the alley," he said. "Use it."

She pulled him up the stairs to its' door, hanging ajar. It was obviously empty, by both its darkened windows and the objects strewn upon the stairs: clothes, a toy soldier, carved of wood, and a pool of dried blood, staining half a stair on one side.

As she closed the door Mist exhaled massively. "I feared for a moment they would take me up on my offer," she said, leaning back against the door's oaken boards.

"I think they would rather cut off a finger than bed a sorceress," said Skeen, pulling back a curtain to peer out a window beside the entry door.

"They shall eventually realize we're not coming out," said the petite apprentice, fretting with the gauzy clothes she wore.

There was enough morning light for them to see inside the house. Furniture lay strewn about, as if ransacked. Whether tossed about by the owners in haste or by Theocracy marines in greed was unclear, and likely did not matter.

Mist turned to see Skeen looking at her. "I would have though you had seen enough earlier," she said, though she smiled.

"I'm not sure that's possible," said Skeen, stepping away from the window.

Mist flushed a bit. "Oh?" she asked.

"You're a lovely woman, Mist," he offered, walking toward the back of the house and seeming to search.

She followed him, padding on the thin-soled sandals that she had stolen from the sorceress.

"However, I shall remained distracted until we cover you properly. It's rather too much of a good thing." He pulled a blanket from some tossed-aside goods, mostly dishes, and wrapped it about her shoulders.

Mist accepted the impromptu cloak and pulled it tight about herself. "Thank you - for the blanket and for your kind words, Skeen."

"Just the truth, Mist," he said, standing upright again and smiling roguishly again. His weasel-like face seemed somehow different this day to Mist than the day before. Had he changed over the night shared in danger? Had she?

Skeen moved once more toward the back, this time for the door that stood open into a narrow alley. He made a small squeaking sound as he felt his forgotten leash pulled tight.

"Mentor Salira shall be wroth with me," she said as she reeled the staggering Skeen toward her to embrace him in a hug. "She said I was to avoid young men." Having said that, she kissed Skeen.

Skeen's eyes opened wider than they had even during fights for his very life for a moment, then closed as he realized she was not going to end the kiss until he had actively taken part in it.

He returned the kiss, though he was certainly no master at such things. Finally their lips parted and both took a half-step back. Mist was pulling her blanket about her and looking at the floor. "If that was out of line, I apologize," she said.

"No, no!" said Skeen hastily. "I don't mind at all. I had rather hoped you liked me."

"Oh, I like you," she replied, smiling one of those infuriatingly mysterious woman's smiles. "Now, let us get somewhere more safe than a block from the Theocracy's strongpoint."

With that, she moved decisively out the back door. Skeen followed her, tugging at the cloth bound about his neck to remove it. He looked at the twisted cloth, cut from Mist's original dress, for a moment, thinking to toss it aside before folding it and stuffing it into his pocket.

The burning building collapsed beside Lord Templar Moghran as he guided his mount around the debris. He felt his armor shake with an impact and the warmth of its counter-enchantments activating to shed some spell that had been hurled at him. It had taken a circle of magi most of year to lay the enchantments upon that armor and two of them had not survived the ordeal.

The Templar thanked the One for their sacrifice at that moment. He spun his mount about, even as the marines nearest him responded to his motion, turning alongside him.

The blue-clad magician on the low wall resembled more a pincushion than a man by the time the last bolt sank home and he flopped off the wall to lie in a pierced heap on the ground. Moghran tilted his head slightly as he examined the man's hand, clutching a silver pendant. That did not last long as the pendant was ripped from his fingers by a marine and stuffed into a loot bag.

Such looting of the heretics was, while not encouraged, not discouraged, either. So long at the blasphemous symbols and icons were melted down promptly, their corruption would be minimal. Marines were rough sort to begin with, and a tiny inflow of corruption would hardly taint them. The body shivered as it was jostled by more marines passing by. Moghran looked away, to survey down the street.

Screams came to his ears as marines were flung back, in a wave. The Templar smiled, that was more something that would test his mettle. Another of the blasted blue-clad heretics stood in the middle of a broad intersection, a staff clutched in his hands. It glowed like the fires of the deepest hells in his grip and every marine that entered, or was jostled into, an unseen circle about the man was hurled back violently. Enough so that he would injure himself or whomever he struck as he flew, or both.

The wizard seemed to be covering the retreat of a company of armsmen. It always startled Moghran to see such self-sacrifice among the heretics. The Deacon had spent some moments explaining to him that it was not truly self-sacrifice, or not the truest form of such. The Dark One had a standing promise to reward such actions with status in his infernal realms after death. That they did so still made him think about such things, though.

Arrows and bolts spattered off the repelling sphere around the magi, rebounding and even striking other marines until the captain called a halt to the fire. The mage was weakening slowly. His arms seemed to falter a bit and the staff shook. The large bubble of mana was taking a toll on him rapidly and Moghran looked impassively on as he counted down the moments before the spell would fail and the wizard would be overrun.

The marines jeered at the mage, hurling insults and naming the blasphemer for what he was. It always pleased Moghran to see evil being called out. Where were his own magi and why had they not put an end to this unseemly stalling of the holy armies of the Theocracy?

Moghran looked about to spot any of their own tamed wizards, with their shaven pates and brown robes. They should have squelched this resistance. A single wizard standing alone should not be able to put a halt to near a thousand men.

Blood trickled from the nose of the wizard and his eyes seemed to take on a bit of a glazed look. He would collapse soon, but he seemed determined to hold to the last moment he could. A spark of admiration lit Moghran's heart. Dark servant or no, this man was a foe worthy of the armies of the Theocracy. The templar only wished he could face the man in a direct fight, it would be glorious.

Could the man's spell repel the Templar's armor, though? Moghran guided his mount forward through the press of marines. He slowed as he approached and dismounted, swinging his armored leg over the massive stallion's back. He had the wizard's undivided attention, though, which was ideal. With an almost casual ease, Moghran walked through the barrier.

His armor heated until it felt it must glow upon him, though that was mostly an illusion of the senses, as the Templar knew. Yet, he was not repelled back by the aura that the wizard had erected.

The glazed look on the magi's face cleared as alarm grew in his eyes. Moghran took a long moment to draw out his massive sword with its ornately engraved blade with the red eye of the One marking its hilt. "Heretic, you should be honored to die at my hand," he said, speaking slowly to be sure the man understood his fate, then he raised his voice. "Do not interfere!" he called out, then spoke more quietly. "You may drop the spell, I shall fight you honorably and personally, none shall dare come between us."

The wizard, a young man, with a angular face and bright red hair, slumped in place. Moghran felt the warmth of his armor instantly fall off and there seemed a subtle shift in the marines that had been held back in a near semi-circle.

"You've done the Dark One proud," said Moghran.

The man spat, a mixture of saliva and blood, onto the ground. "You almost make the Dark One seem honorable," he said. His voice sounded strained and tired.

"Do you know how to wield that staff as other than a magical aid?" asked Moghran, eyeing the long oaken rod and its' silver-shod ends.

The man lifted it slightly, but into a practiced defensive posture.

"Good, then you'll not die unarmed," said Moghran and he blurred into motion.

Old the Templar may have been, but he moved like a striking adder, his arms and body flowing fluidly into an attack that the wizard barely managed to parry with the staff. Splinters of wood flew from the staff along with a shower of emerald sparks.

"Then you do know the dance?" asked Moghran as he spun around for another swing.

The wizard ducked the blow and the staff came around to strike Moghran's armored shoulder, the silver tip flashing as it struck. Moghran staggered under what felt to be a blow from an oak falling upon him.

The mage did not seem to take much heart from his meager victory in the exchange as the Templar regained his balance. He did not press his advantage either. He was trained in staffwork, obviously, but he also was schooled in sparring, not battle. In sparring, you backed off after a hit; in battle, you took any chance to finish your opponent.

Moghran's arm throbbed within the armor. The wizard knew his art, for certain. Landing a physical blow had allowed him to pierce the anti-magical wards on his armor and do some real injury.

Behind the stylized skull of the helmet, Moghran smiled. "You surprise me, wizard, I had heard your lot were studious and feeble."

The wizard shifted to keep the Templar before him and kept the staff up in the defensive position. He launched into another attack, spinning and imparting all the might he could muster into the blade. The wizard brought up the oaken staff again, attempting to parry, and he would have, had not the holy might within the sword not bit through the wood. The staff was cut in twain and a crimson ribbon formed on the Wizard's chest, that ribbon widened to a gaping wound that had laid open ribs and flesh. The wizard gasped and fell to his knees.