Guild Mage: Apprentice-Chapter 100. The House of Wyrms

Keri turned away from Calevis to confront the wyrm itself, while all around him people scrambled down over the tiered stone benches into the bowl of the amphitheater. The creature’s head was massive: the size of his bedchamber at Mountain Home, perhaps: and covered in scales of mottled brown and green, the better to blend into the forest. The eyes were cold, slitted and inhuman, yet with a cruel intelligence behind them.

The wyrm opened its mouth, and a spray of liquid jetted out from within, shooting into the upper rings, and the Eld who were trying to get away from it. Wherever the venom touched cloth or skin, smoke rose; wherever it struck an unfortunate person in the face, it brought blindness, and piteous wails as the victim tore at their own eyes in panic.

The mana in the area shifted, as if a soft pressure, nearly unnoticeable, had suddenly been lifted away and revealed by the very fact of its absence. Archers appeared above the amphitheater, Elden men and women in the armor of House Iravata. At a shouted command, they loosed, all at once, and a volley of arrows descended upon the center of the bowl, where the elders of the houses had gathered.

A wet, hacking laugh drew Keri’s eye back to where the traitor had fallen. Calevis rose on a column of swirling, pulsing gore, sucking in the blood from every wounded person within a dozen feet as if he were a whirlpool.

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“An enemy raids your greatest port, and your response is to gather the entire leadership of our people in the one place that weapons and armor are forbidden,” Calevis ranted. “What fools. Our people have forgotten how to fight.”

“Savelet Aiveh Dvo Fleiam o’Mae!” Keri shouted, thrusting one hand toward Calevis and the other toward the wyrm. Twin bars of brightness erupted from his palms: one scorched the scales of the wyrm as it came slithering down into the amphitheater in a sudden rush, but did not kill it. The other boiled away part of Calevis’ twisting column of blood and gore, but the magic carried him up and away from Keri’s attack so that he was not further harmed.

Keri threw himself aside, rolling across the dirt floor between levels of stone benches, and was forced to raise a hand to shield his face from chips of flying stone and dust as the wyrm crashed through everything solid on its way down to the bottom of the Hall of Ancestors. When he rolled to his feet, he found Sohvis and Rika, crouched down to take shelter where they’d all been sitting together.

“Get her out of here!” he shouted to his cousin. “Rika! Find Rei!”

Though she’d insisted on accompanying a few raids in her time, Keri’s kwenim was not truly a warrior: she was an artist, a dancer. The horrors unfolding around them had clearly shocked her, and rather than move, she remained frozen, eyes wide and without comprehension. Sohvis, on the other hand, was a warrior, like Keri. Without a moment’s hesitation, he obeyed orders, throwing Rika over his shoulder and rushing up the rings of the amphitheater, leaping the stone benches as he went.

Keri searched for his soldiers. “Linnea!” he shouted. From where she’d stood watch at the very edge of the land surrounding the great bowl in which the benches were built, the dark haired woman emerged, a canvas roll of weapons in her arms. Long years of fighting had taught Keri to hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

“Here!” she shouted, and drew his spear forth from the roll of concealed weapons, and threw it down to him. Keri caught the spear in his outstretched hand, and let his mana flow into it without words. The blade at the end of the shaft caught, and blazed to life like the rising sun.

“Warriors of the Eld!” Keri shouted. “To me!”

Another volley of arrows rose into the sky, hung for a heartbeat, and then descended on the center of the amphitheater, where many of the elders were already bleeding and wounded. All around the Hall of the Ancestors, Elden magic flared to life: lightning fell from the sky, jets of fire arced across the amphitheater, and shadows rose up to consume small groups of archers above.

The wyrm was nearly upon them now: Keri couldn’t do anything about the archers, not so many, but perhaps he could draw the beast off. He dashed forward, toward the long, slithering body that extended behind its head all the way back up the rings of stone benches. Keri planted the butt of the spear in the packed earth of the walkway between two rings of benches, and jumped, using the strong wooden shaft to throw himself higher, up into the air above the trailing body of the wyrm.

In midair, Keri swung the spear around so that it pointed tip down, took it in both hands, and fell upon the coils of the wyrm with all of his weight. The blazing head of the spear tore into the creature’s scaley hide, sinking down a foot or more, so that blood welled up around the wound, and Keri slipped on the slickness. It was only his grip on the shaft of the spear that kept him from falling off the beast to one side or the other, and then he could think of nothing but hanging on when it moved suddenly from the pain of his assault.

“You think to stop us here, do you?” Calevis taunted, using his column of blood to approach. “To play the hero? The scourge of the north, who’s hunted his own people for the mere crime of remembering their loyalty to the old gods. I’m pleased that chance has put you before me, Inkeris ka Ilmari. Chance or your own arrogance.”

A third volley of arrows loosed, but then something changed. The mana around Keri, Calevis, and the wym snapped, turning about so that in an instant it was no longer under any of their control. The light in the blade of Keri’s spear died, and the gorey pseudo-limb that had been supporting Calevis collapsed out from under him. Keri sucked in a breath, and tasted coming snow.

Overhead, every arrow hung suspended in the sky. First one at a time, then by the score, the arrow heads and shafts frosted over, then snapped, as white flakes began to drift down from the clouds.

Keri chanced a look down toward the bottom of the amphitheater, where the elders had come under attack. There, an old man with long, white hair, stood with his arms upraised and extended, the broken shaft of an arrow protruding from his shoulder, his robes stained with blood. Keri recognized the man: he’d sat around a campfire, speaking with his son only the night before.

Though he’d been taken by surprise and wounded, and even ravaged by the passing of centuries, Auris Ka Syvä was still the son of a god. Keri had never truly understood what that meant, before - not until this very moment. Auris clenched his fist, and every scrap of mana, throughout the entire amphitheater, obeyed his will.

Above the rim of the bowl, Calevis’ archers were forced to their knees by a sudden pressure. Their bows frosted over and then cracked, snapping in half and falling uselessly to the ground.

“Have you so soon forgotten what we fought for?” Auris shouted, his voice echoing through the stillness of that sacred place. For an eternal moment, time itself seemed to still, like a leaf caught against the bank of a stream, unable to continue its journey with the current. “We were slaves. Slaves! They worked us as they willed, bred us as they willed, like beasts of the field! Have you not seen the scars on the backs of your grandmothers and grandfathers? How can you choose to crawl back now, and make of yourselves willing servants? What blindness, what foolishness, to have freedom, and throw it away!”

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“Kill him!” Calevis shouted. “He’s only one man!” How the traitor managed to move, Keri couldn’t imagine: perhaps whatever wicked power he’d accepted from the Lady of Blood protected him from Auris’ spell.

“Sometimes one man is all it takes,” Auris shouted back, his lip twisted in contempt. He swept a hand toward the wyrm and its master, and a wave of ice crystals erupted around them, piercing the thick scales of long coils and causing the beast to roar in pain.

Then, as if he were a rag doll that had been tossed aside by a child, Auris Ka Syvä fell to the ground, his face pale, and the iron control that had been exerted for a moment over all magic in the area was gone.

The moment he felt his magic return, Keri shouted, and the blade of his spear, still buried in the back of the wyrm, flared to life, scorching through its flesh. A thrashing of the coil threw him off, and the creature leaned its head down, not to bite, but to take Calevis up in its jaws. With a gentleness belying its size, it turned about, carrying the wounded man up and out of the amphitheater.

With their bows destroyed, the traitors of House Iravata left with them, withdrawing into the forest, pursued by blasts of air, coils of roots, and waves of earth from the rallying Eld at the bottom of the bowl. Keri knew they would be making for the waystone, to escape, and he was torn between the necessity of pursuing, and the fearful need to know whether or not his son was safe.

“Your orders?” Linnea asked, siding down off a broken bench on the ring above them, a blade in her right hand.

“Call the storm,” Keri told her. “Harry them on their way, to ensure they don’t turn and kill more. Send some of our warriors to follow them at a distance, and report back.” He looked down to the bottom of the amphitheater, where Valtteri cradled his father to his chest. Keri found his own father’s eyes, and received a nod.

“I need to make certain my son is safe,” Keri said. “I will meet you at our camp.” Then, spear in hand, he ran up the rings of the amphitheater, taking the levels in great leaps. As he ran through the forest, the snow which had begun to fall when Auris Ka Syvä used his magic petered out, then died.

The children had been left at a communal playground, where long ago - when Keri himself was still a child - the Vakansa had worked together to make a clearing by the side of the stream that ran through this part of the forest. There, they had placed trunks of old, hardwood, shorn of their branches and scattered about at odd angles, leaning atop each other, like a pile of sticks. There were great boulders, too, and the whole made for a mess of places to climb, jump, and hide. He’d spent hours there with Rika and Sohvis, during the council’s infrequent meetings.

When he saw the first body, slumped against the bole of a tree at the edge of the clearing, Keri’s pulse beat so loudly that he could hear nothing else in all the world. A moment’s glance confirmed that it was an Iravata warrior, though Keri could see no weapon in her grasp, only armor and a strange mound of dust. Her hand was clutched to her stomach, and soaked in blood, as if to hold in her life.

Keri turned away from the corpse and rushed into the clearing. Sohvis and Rika had beat him there, and when he saw his son’s bright hair, clutched against Rika’s shoulder, Keri could breathe again. “You’re safe,” was all he could say, and he stumbled forward, thrust his spear into the earth, and wrapped them both in his arms. “You’re safe.”

“The council?” Sohvis asked, and Keri shook his head.

“Many wounded, some dead. The attackers were driven off. What happened here?”

Sohvis raised his arm, and pointed to a woman with blue hair so dark that it seemed nearly black, until the sunlight struck it at the right angle.

“Inkeris,” she said, approaching, and Keri could see, now that he had room to consider anything other than his own son’s safety, that the woman had gathered over a dozen children about her, all of whom now clung to her skirts.

“Eila,” he recalled her name. Valtteri’s mother, and Liv’s grandmother. “You protected the children? Thank you.”

“She was amazing!” Rei burst in, pushing himself up from his mother’s shoulder. “She waved her hand, and all their weapons just turned to dust!”

“Auris?” the woman asked. “I saw the snow…”

“Wounded, at least,” Keri admitted. “I saw him take an arrow, but it did not stop him. He saved: I don’t even know how many people. I’ve never seen anything like it. He took control of all the magic in the entire place. Your son is with him.”

“I must go, then,” Eila said, and hurried off into the trees. “Keep an eye on the children until their parents come,” she called back. “Those that may.”

The thought hadn’t come to him until her words brought it home, but now Keri wondered just how many of the children in the clearing were now orphans. He wrapped his arms around Rika and Rei again, while his cousin stood off to one side, watching the forest. For the moment, at least, the only thing that mattered to him was that they were safe.

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It took the rest of the day to take stock of the dead, and to see the wounded treated.

Linnea found Keri at the clearing, and brought a handful of warriors with her, whom he promptly set as guards to watch over the children. Most of their original minders had been slaughtered by the attacking Iravata troops. Eila had put a stop to the assault singlehandedly, and Linnea oversaw the removal and sorting of the corpses.

A great pyre was built, for all agreed that with the return of the Lady of Blood, the old ways must be followed. Valtteri spoke of the return of the Great Bats, and the survivors of Soltheris had seen them descending to feed from corpses during the fighting in that city. And so the dead must be burned, without delay.

The surviving elders agreed, without dissent, that the Vakansa were now at war. House Iravata was to be considered an enemy, and Airis Ka Reimis had volunteered to lead a force to their lands. Keri was too young for his voice to be heard in council, but he had some hope of being appointed a war leader. And so, when Valtteri ka Auris stepped into the light of the campfire at the center of House Bælris’ encampment, he leapt to his feet.

“You can sit back down,” Valtteri said, his face drawn with pain and grief. “No one will be departing tonight.”

“How is your father?” Keri asked, settling back into a camp chair. Rika was inside their tent, getting Rei to sleep, but Sohvis took a seat next to him, and gave their visitor a nod of respect.

“Dying,” Valtteri said, once he’d settled into an empty chair. “Which is why I have come. My mother will keep him alive as long as she can: long enough to bring him home to Kelthelis. I need to go with them.”

“Of course,” Keri said. “Your family comes first.”

“Would you go to Coral Bay for me?” Valtteri asked. “Use the waystones, and bring my daughter north. I want her to be able to bid farewell to her grandfather.”

Keri hesitated. “Should it not be a member of your family?”

“None but I have been to Lucania in many years,” Valtteri said. “You went south to Freeport to address their king and barons. You are the only one, besides perhaps myself or Ambassador Sakari, who is both somewhat familiar with human customs, and known to my daughter. Travel quickly, fetch her back to us in the north, and then you can rejoin your family. Please.”

Keri sighed, and tried to imagine how he would feel in the other man’s place. Of course, he would want to go and get Rei himself; but if he couldn’t go, there would have to be someone he trusted. Valtteri was putting his faith in Keri, by asking this. Could he really refuse? Certainly not without damaging that relationship.

“I will do it,” he promised. “South to Coral Bay, and then back north to your homelands. I’ve heard tell that using your waystone is dangerous.”

“Liv knows what to expect,” Valtteri said. “I’ve taken her through enough times, now. She’ll make certain you’re prepared. And after seeing you fight today, I have no doubt you’ll both come through in one piece. I’ll order our patrols to watch for your arrival.”

“I’ll leave at dawn, then,” Keri promised. He stood, glancing toward the tent. He could already predict Rika’s reaction.

“I am grateful,” Valterri said, rising from his own seat.

“I want to fight,” Keri said, before the older man could leave. “If there are warriors going to Varuna, I want to be part of that.”

Valterri considered him a long moment. “I will speak to the council about you. I cannot make any promises.”

“Your word is enough.” Keri stepped forward, and offered his hand. The two men grasped each other by the arm, and then Valterri strode off into the trees.