The Plains of Oxonia, Kingdom of Mercia
August 22, 518 AD
The Battle of Oxon
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The tip of my staff scratched out a pattern in the dirt. A five-pointed star within a circle, the workhorse standard of evocation circles. Not particularly fancy, not particularly complicated, but it was flexible, and able to summon and channel vast reserves of power without burning out or setting a wizard's brain on fire. Some people liked the hexagram, and I don't have any problem with that, but the only way to do that is two triangles. You do the one, and then you do the other, there's just no way to do it in one motion. With a pentagram, you don't even need to take your stylus off the pad, just zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, magic! Can't get any simpler.
I think about pointless minutiae like this a lot. It takes my mind off whatever's really going on.
I raised my head up from the dirt, my brows shaded under the brim of my wide-brimmed hat.
The sky was burning. The ground beneath my feet was melting and oozing, great chunks floating into the air like bubbles rising from some sleeping sea-creature. Jagged shards of frozen air splashed into the boiling rivers, their waters running a bright green that shone like dragonscale from within. This was the full brunt of the mage war, the toll that such vast outpourings of magic upon the material world. This was the force of a thousand embattled wizards pressing upon the land like a hammer upon a bar of hot iron. This was a dark maelstrom of energy, a nexus of ultimate power, a great magical host bringing all their willpower to bear on one place.
This was a thing not seen since the time of legends, since god and man walked this earth as one.
This was why wizards were still feared.
At the center of it all, at the beating heart of destruction was the Academia Magica. Its curving, proud towers reached up to the sky like the prongs of some titanic primordial stag sleeping beneath the earth. The ancient stone spires were twisting and dancing in the far distance, moving as though they wished to grasp the sky, pulling the power of the heavens itself down to earth. In this battlefield I could hardly tell if it was some mirage, some trick of the air making the far-off towers dance, or if the vast amounts of magic in the air had brought life to the ancient stone.
"You've led us into the mouth of the dragon, Metamorphos," said the man watching my work. "How sure are you of your plan to slay the beast?"
The man was tall, a head taller than I, and twice as broad at the shoulder. He was older than me, too, with long, gray hair, a face lined with wrinkles and scars and made complete with a thick, bushy, mustache that hung down past his chin. That mustache alone was far more of a man than I would ever be, and the rest of the man was in proportion. He had spurned armor, coming to battle in a simple tunic and plaid trousers, with a fur-lined mantle about his shoulders, but an ivory-hilted sword hung at his waist. Around his neck was a band of gold, carved in intricate detail and finery. Among his people, this was the symbol of a king.
This was Loth, king of Lothian, the greatest human kingdom in the land of Alba. With him had come a mighty force of Albans, the swords and shields of a hundred battle-hardened tribes. Every fighting man in the kingdom of Lothian and all of her allied nations had come together in a host these islands had never before seen. Even the Romans feared the Albans. They would rather build a massive, fortified stone wall across the entire width of the island and agree to stay on their side of the line if the Albans would stay on theirs.
"I know the tactic of the enemy and how to counter it," I said. "I have sought counsel from the Black Oracle, who saw through the mists of time and gave this plan her blessing. I have a spell devised by Vespa herself, and I have your men, the greatest army these islands have ever known." I sighed. "It may not suffice."
Loth nodded, his hand resting upon his sword.
"But yet it is a battle that must be fought," said Loth. "And if not slain now, the beast will grow fat and strong, and soon no force of man, magic or monster will stand up to it. We must stop it here, for there is no-one else who can."
"I wish I had half your courage," I said.
"Courage comes from fighting for something," said Loth, tapping his chest. "I am king, you know. These are my people. I fight to protect them."
"…is that all?" I said. "There's nothing more?"
"Does there need to be?"
I didn't have an answer for that.
"John!"
"Father!"
Witney was coming from the bulk of the army, and with her was Agravain, the king's firstborn son. He was tall, even taller than his father, with a handsome face and a mop of disheveled black hair. He wore a belted kilt of the same pattern as his father's, and strapped across his back was a blade the size of a man.
Witney came up to me and took me in her arms, silently holding me close. Agravain bowed to his father, but I saw a malefic eye cast in our direction.
"What news, my son?"
"The witches are in position," he said, rising.
"Wizards, Agravain," said Witney. "Wizards. Eldritch, Moira, Inverse and Blaise have all finished their circles and they await your signal."
"Excellent," I said, drawing my pentagram to a close. "Now we wait for them to cast their spell."
Witney and I turned to stare at the burning sky and eldritch landscape, silently waiting the moment when our foes launched their attack. Witney lowered her head to my shoulder, and I put my hand on her head, slowly running my fingers through her long, white hair.
"Why do we let them attack first?" said Agravain, staring down his high, pointed nose at us. The man was a giant of a man, towering over the pair of us as a normal man above a dwarf. "Your plan would but lead us to our destruction as an opening gambit! We should simply lay siege to the lot of them and get this ill-thought battle done with."
My face flushed darkly, and I found myself unable to find proper words. I knew he was making sense, as rare an occurrence as that was. I had been over this plan long enough in the quiet, empty hours of the night to not be familiar with every conceivable flaw in the design and execution. Here and now, as we came close to the breaking moment, I had nothing to say in my defense. Witney, on the other hand, stared up at the powerful warrior, bristling with anger. I knew she wasn't going to stand to be spoken to in that tone.
"Your father trusts his plan," Witney said, slapping my chest for emphasis. "His army, and the fighting men of all the kingdom were willing to follow him down this course. You should listen to those wiser than you."
"Would that there was any wisdom on display," he said. "I remind you that our plan comes not from a king or a general but from a wizard, and a neophyte at that."
"The first word of wizard is 'wise'," Witney said. "And we may be young, but we stand with our back against centuries of scholarship."
"Scholarship will not help you on the battlefield, wizard"
"Helped him kick your arse."
Agravain reached for his sword, Witney drew her wand from her sleeve, my knuckles went pale around my staff. Loth came between us.
"Whatever fool's war you wish to fight, let it wait!" he said, his voice projecting over the noise of the restless and the magic wreaking its havoc on the natural world. "We are committed to this course, come the fires of this world or the next."
Agravain wasn't happy, as though he ever was, but he backed off, and Witney hid her want. I let out a tremendous sigh of relief.
Then, all hell broke loose.
"Look!"
Witney noticed first, pointing off into the distance. I turned to follow her and saw tiny specks of red, no bigger than far-off stars, dancing in the air about the tops of the towers.
"Something is afoot," I said, staring off into the distance. "Let's take a closer look."
Witney held out both of her hands, her eyes tightly shut. She spread her hands, wisps of pure white energy dancing between her fingers.
"Domesticos."
The energy swirled together between Witney's fingers and coalesced together. She shaped the white light like a child playing with clay, her fingers shaping and stretching the insubstantial glow, rolling and pressing it between her fingers, molding them to shape. When she was done, she opened her hands, holding a remarkably well-crafted white image of a falcon.
She threw her hands up and the bird soared into the air, taking to life and to wing. It let out a triumphant screech as it soared and swirled into the endless chaos.
I placed my hand back atop Witney's head and closed my eyes. Energy tingled in the palm of my hand, a current that flowed between me and my familiar. A sharing of minds, of energy, of abilities.
"Participatem."
Witney spread her wings and took to the sky, soaring into the air with a few powerful beats of her graceful wings. Her mind was the mind of the hawk now, and my mind was hers, sharing this wordless, bodiless connection as we saw through the vision of a hawk.
The mages were gathered at the tops if the high towers, enveloped in field of red energy. Every so often one would collect an orb of energy between their hands and hurling it into the air, where it joined the swirling flock of crimson stars. We could make out the figure of Pteratos clearly. Inhumanly tall, abnormally thin, his bulbous head floated above the masses like a drifting cloud. The others flowed about him, desperate to be near him. As he went, so did they, the enthralled wizards drifting and rippling with his movements like stalks of corn waving in a breeze.
Pteratos reached the edge, the crowd parting about him like the sea. He reached out a single gaunt hand and a vast stream of energy flared out and into the sky. The others added their own spells, but it was as dancing sparks to a mighty tongue of flame. The fire burned through the air, and we were engulfed in red. There was a briefest sensation of flames dancing upon our skin, and then the connection was broken. We were separate and earthbound once more.
Not that either of us needed a birds-eye view to see this… The fire was swirling about some invisible axis like a distant, far-off galaxy, the fire mixing and fusing together, growing until it burst forth into a single, giant sphere of flame. It was as though the sun itself was hanging in the air just a few hundred feet above our heads, no less radiant or powerful for its diminished size. I turned to shield Witney, bending over and blocking the harsh light from her sensitive eyes, and in an instant I was almost drenched in perspiration. Loth and his son both stood steadfast, hands on their swords, as if that could save them.
"What doom have you led us to now, Wizards?" shouted Agravain over the deafening roar of the fire. The enormous orb started to descend upon the earth, great tongues of fire reaching towards us like hungry, grasping hands.
"This is their ultimate spell," Witney said, throwing up her hood and burying her face in it. I turned towards the spell, clutching my staff tightly, pumping my power into the base wood. "The spell that slew an entire army," she continued. "The conflagratio."
I held my staff high in the air, tongues of magic flame spiraling down towards it.
"And it's our signal," I added. "INITIA, PARMAM BONAM DEFLECTEM, AEGIS!"
I swung at the ground, my staff arcing through the air like I was working on my paganica game. The tip struck the ground, sparking like a head of a match, drawing forth dozens of tiny sparks that ran along the length of my staff like crawling insects. A blue-white bolt of lightning shot off into the air as my staff followed through, slowly arcing over the assembled mass of men like an electric rainbow, leaving a thick trail hanging in the air.
"This is your grand spell?" said Agravain. "How will this aid us?"
"Wait for it…" Witney said, holding out one hand. The bolt turned down, falling back towards the earth. "Wait for it…"
The bolt of energy struck ground, flashing like a sudden burst of flame. The glow persisted for but a second, and then a second bolt shot through the sky, joining its sibling. The orb was still coming down, burning through the sky, but bolts of energy and flame were jumping back and forth from it and my spell.
"That's how it works, people," I said, filled with a sudden and uncharacteristic rush of confidence. "Five wizards at five magic arrays located at five points around the circle. You send a beam from one to the other and it turns those five arrays into one single, titanic circle. The power increases exponentially along the axis of scale, turning a tiny abjuration charm into a shield that can guard an army. Or, in layman's terms, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, magic!"
I wouldn't normally say that. I couldn't normally that. But so much could have gone wrong. In my mind's eye, I saw every potential for disaster repeated a hundred thousand times until they were lost in infinity. But the spell actually working… it was like a bowstring within me that had been stretched to its limit. With just the smallest thing, all the tension was finally released, shooting a bolt of euphoria straight through my body.
Agraivain stared down at me, his green eyes narrow. His stony face cracked, and a smirk spread across it.
"You may impress me yet, wizard," he said.
"Are you… are you actually pleased at me?"
"…give it time."
"John!" Witney shouted. I was so stunned by the warrior's grudging compliment that I barely heard her. "Incoming!"
I turned my gaze to the sky. My heart sank, and the blood drained from my face. Fire was falling from the sky. Great bursts of flame dropping from the floating inferno, landing in the midst of the assembled men. It came down like rain, sending the soldiers into a panic. They tried to move, tried to evade it, but the boundary of the spell kept them closed in, packed as tight as tinned merlurks. The third arc of the pentagram was only just arcing through the air.
"Oh no…" I said, watching as fire rained down from the heavens, an infernal wrath setting my arrogance afire. "Oh no no no no gods no. They've beaten it… oh no."
"John, we can't panic now!" Witney said, grabbing me by the shoulders. But I would be having none of that!
"Damn them, they knew just what to do!" I said, spewing forth my every panicked word. "They know how to break the spell!"
"What are you saying, you foolish witch?" said Agravain, lifting me up to his eye-level by my lapels. "My kinsmen burn out there because of your kind and you blather endlessly instead of helping them!"
"There's… there's nothing I can do," I said, panting. The third arc struck home and the fourth beam began its journey.
"None of us can cast any spells until this array is completed, and if any one of us is killed, the entire enchantment will fail," Witney added, the fire reflected in her blood-red eyes. "They aim to break our defenses before they are even built."
"Idiots!" said Agravain, dropping me to the ground and wheeling on Witney. "Why didn't you know of this?"
"It's a completely unprecedented phenomenon," she said, staring the man down. "This spell didn't have such an effect last time. They must have modified it somehow. But to do that… they must have known we would cast it…"
"So we are betrayed," said Loth, staring mournfully out as fire rained down upon his army. "Our defeat has come from within."
"No… Not defeated yet, sire!" I said, rallying myself. "The fire comes without a will to guide it. It may have no way of even hitting the wizards!"
"Only us expendable normal people," said Agravain.
"…I… didn't mean that," I said, my words slowly petering out.
"But if the wizards survive this, many more will live!" Witney said, picking up the slack. "We just have to avoid the fire and–"
There was a crack of thunder in the air, and I looked up. A firebolt had found us, streaking out of the sky like a thunderbolt from Olympus. I could feel the heat in my blood.
I had no time to think. I just acted. I jumped forwards, pushing Witney to the ground. Agravain came down with us. I don't know if I actually tried to save him or if it was just a fortunate accident, but all three of us survived without harm. I lay there in the dirt, staring into my Witney's eyes as showers of dirt and fire washed over us, bouncing off the protective wards sewn into my coat.
"A-are you…"
"I'm fine…" Witney said, a flush coming to her snow white cheeks. We lay there just perhaps just a bit longer than was necessary to escape the devastation.
"Father?" said Agravain, running to Loth's side. "Father!"
The two of us shared a glance and quickly got to our feet. Although Witney, Agravain and I were all able to stand up unharmed, King Loth of Lothian was not so fortunate.
The king's right leg was… gone. Everything up to his knee was simply burned away, naught left but ash-black bones lying in the dirt, and his body was covered with burns so horrific I couldn't bring myself to describe them. Agravain knelt by his father's side, tears streaming down his face as Loth lay there, twitching in dirt that had been fused to glass. I… I was frozen. I didn't know any healing magic… I didn't know how to take the pain away. All I could do was stand and watch their shared anguish.
Loth's lips moved, but he was too weak to talk. Agravain knelt over him, trying to hold his ear to his father's face without touching his ravaged skin. He sat up and looked to me.
"Circles," said Agravain. "He said 'Circles'."
"Circles?" I said. "…oh no!"
My circle had been demolished. Dirt scattered, my design, wiped away. Naught was left but a crater in the ground with a beam of energy arcing off into the sky. The final arc was coming back around, fires be damned, but if there was no circle there to meet it…
I couldn't think about that. Leaving Witney behind, I ran, ran to my circle, grasping the bolt of magic in my hand. The raw magic set my hand ablaze, but I kept my mind clear, focused, staring at the sky. The blue-white bolt fell to the earth, and I stretched out my second hand to grasp it as it fell. Witney turned her face away, and I wrenched my eyes shut.
My palm closed around it, my flesh burning with electric fire as my body completed the circle. The sky flashed blue, and a sheen of energy took up the space between the bolts of light, turning the air above our heads into a brilliant dome of power. All of it was passing through me. I was the fulcrum, the balancing point, the spinning top. If the power pushed in the wrong way, all would collapse.
The Conflagratio struck the Aegis, the ball of fire meeting the shield of thunder in mid-air. I could hear the gasps and roars of the army as overhead these two elements battled in the sky. Flames raged over the dome. Lightning danced over the orb. It was like a battle between two dragons… no… between the gods. And in the center of it was me.
I remembered one of my first magical theory lessons. Wizards use spell circles and implements like staves and orbs to store potential magic in pre-shaped forms. Much of the difficulty in casting a spell not in power but in control, in putting the magic into the proper shape, of taming that wild elemental force. But the magic had a will of its own, and the more one tried to control it, the more it fought back. Directing the spell into a pre-made form took the burden off of the wizard, and the magic simply followed the path of least resistance. If a wizard tried to cast a high-level spell unaided it could totally overwhelm his mind.
That was the accepted theory, anyway. I didn't know what they were talking about. I felt great.
"COME TO ME, YOU FOUL AND SPELLBOUND FIENDS!" I shouted, raw magic spewing from my open mouth. My voice carried over the surface of the dome and it vibrated with my words like the skin of a drum. Anyone within a mile could hear me, and they could feel the fury traveling along my words. "FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE, ALL YOU HAVE HURT, ALL YOU HAVE TAKEN FROM ME, I SHALL MEET YOUR POWER HERE! I SHALL BE AS A WALL OF SHEILDS BEFORE YOUR ARMY, AND I SHALL BE THE HAMMER THAT RAINS UPON YOUR ARMOR!"
I rose into the air upon a thunderbolt, arms spread, feet apart, my body burning in the flames of righteous anger. The dome of the Ageis rose as well, pushing back the flying inferno. Bolts of thunder struck the Conflagratio from all sides, striking at the skin, pushing through the flames. The thunder burrowed into the orb like maggots eating their way through a corpse. The red-hot flame was glowing sickly blue.
"BRING FORTH ALL YOUR HELL!" I shouted, raising my hands to the sky. "I SHALL RETURN YOU TENFOLD!"
I brought my hands together like I was crushing a bug. The flame burst apart, roiling through the air like smoke in the wind before fading into empty air. The dome popped like a bubble of soap, but I remained in mid-air, floating upon my own power. I looked down at the army gathered beneath me and pointed to the towers in the distance.
"THEIR POWER IS BROKEN, MEN!" I shouted, and the voice of the army returned in kind. "FALL UPON THEM LIKE THE GODS' OWN THUNDER!"
The army surged forward, and I followed from above. I was watching the great swell of men surging forward like a vast human tide, a wave of men and steel all moving with a single purpose. I was like a god watching from above, seeing entire nations push forward at my single, slightest whim.
I felt oddly sad.555Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqBqjV24F9N
