Burden's Edge (Fury of a Rising Dragon Book 1) Read online

The Grizzly nodded. “Leave your satchels here with me. This will be a zone of safety not to be trampled on.”

  While everyone placed their satchels in team spots, The Grizzly strolled to a wooden campaign table, on top of which rested scrolls, an inkwell and quill, and two hourglasses, one small and one large. He picked up two worn scrolls.

  “Commander Stone, Commander Southguard—a map each.”

  Augum and Eric both received a scroll and a “Good luck in battle, Commander.”

  The Grizzly then placed a hand on the smaller of the two hourglasses. “Commanders, once I flip this, you’ll have a quarter of an hour to run to your keep and make a plan. No one may move beyond the keep’s perimeter until you see my flare, which will be accompanied by a single horn blast. That is when I will turn over the larger hourglass. Then you may advance toward your enemy. Choose your defenses and offenses wisely. Once you see two flares or hear two successive horn blasts, combat ends. Clear as crystal?”

  “Yes, Lord High Commander, sir!” Augum and Eric shouted.

  The Grizzly turned over the small hourglass. “Hop to it, soldiers.”

  Mock Battle

  The groups sprinted to their keeps—except Augum couldn’t run. Instead, he asked two burly soldiers, one a man, the other a woman, to carry him. It would look ridiculous, but the alternative was his team wasting precious time.

  The soldiers carried him haphazardly, causing painful tears in his sutures. He felt warm blood bleed through the linen bandage, but did not complain or tell them to be careful. He was their commander and simply had to suck it up. Besides, he had fought in the war with worse injuries.

  The soldiers deposited a wincing Augum just outside the keep, a three-story creneled battlement surrounded by a pike wall and a moat filled with rancid water, over which stretched a bridge.

  Augum buried the pain and wasted no time unfurling the scroll on the dry grass and studying the map. Everyone but the soldiers and healers gathered around. Careful planning would be critical. He might have gotten flogged, humiliated, and vilified in the heralds, but strategic warfare was one area he excelled in.

  The cavern was a great oval, roughly bisected by a snaking stream. At opposite ends were the keeps and their defenses, surrounded by a small plain of dry grass. From there, everything was roughly mirrored. To the east sat ruins. To the west, a small lake and valley. In between was a sparse forest of stubby oaks. A long siege ditch sat along the tree line facing each keep.

  Augum had learned from the siege at Castle Arinthian and knew the battle would be a straight-on assault by each team. He figured the key was overwhelming the enemy with sheer numbers in a speedy assault. Knowing the strength of warlock defense, he decided on a plan.

  “Caireen—I mean, Captain Lavo—I want you and the archers in the keep with me.” He glanced up at a young man with a short ash wood bow. “How many arrows do you each have?”

  “The standard practice five, Commander.” The soldier’s voice held an amused tone, as if he enjoyed how seriously students of the academy were taking a mock battle.

  “Should be enough. Captain Lavo, you and I will provide warlock defense of the flag. The archers are to hide inside the keep until commanded to make themselves known. Clear?”

  “Clear, Commander,” Caireen said with a smile.

  “Captain Jones—”

  Leera smirked at the title but nonetheless raised a sharp brow, indicating she was on board with his plan. Augum felt odd calling her by her last name, but doing otherwise would undermine her authority within her squad.

  “—I want you and your infantry to act as fodder for the enemy’s arcanery and suck up their precious stamina. Sorry, sirs, but you know this is a different field of battle,” he added upon seeing the soldiers’ disappointed faces. “We need to drain the enemy 7th degrees as much as possible. Captain Cooper, you’ll accompany them with your 1st degrees and do the same.”

  Laudine smiled cheekily. “Fodder. Got it, Commander.”

  “Get your warlocks to use Telekinesis to yank people’s feet, arms, or weapons and throw them off balance. Try to last as long as you can.”

  Laudine nodded. “We shan’t fail thee, Commander.”

  “But a lot of us, like, know our 2nd degree spells, Augum,” Gretchen screeched to an immediate round of hisses.

  “Call him Commander, pupil!” Caireen snapped.

  Gretchen withered.

  “But Pupil Gretchen has a point,” Augum said, nodding at her in acknowledgment, and she beamed. He glanced at the mostly young 1st degree faces. “Slam is useless against advanced warlocks, but it’s late in the term, so I assume you know the basics of Shield, Disarm, and Push?”

  Heads nodded timidly.

  “Most of us are pretty much ready to take our 2nd degree test,” Gretchen said proudly. “Err, Commander.”

  “Which means the opposition is as well,” Augum said. “Everybody got that?” He glanced at the soldiers, with their wooden practice swords and shields. “Expect Disarm attacks in close-range combat and instantly summoned shields, even from the young ones. Anyone who has cords, tie your weapons to your hands.” He’d learned something from those assassins …

  The soldiers glanced at each other with impressed looks. Two of them removed cords from pouches on their belts and tied their swords to their hands.

  Augum turned back to the rapt young faces of the 1st degrees. “Have any of you practiced running while holding up your summoned shields?”

  Heads shook.

  “Right, well, there’s no time like the present. I want you to practice while running to your positions through the forest. And it will help if you pretend the enemy is shooting arrows at you as it will motivate you to focus.”

  The 1st degrees glanced at each other uncertainly.

  “You’re going to need the skill to get close to the keep. Shield is a silent spell, so you should have no trouble. Just don’t overdo it. Conserve your arcane stamina.”

  “How are we approaching them?” Leera asked.

  Augum’s finger traveled over the map. “You’re going along the east cavern wall, over the stream, around the valley, and waiting here.” He tapped a spot in the forest east of the enemy keep.

  “What will we be waiting for, Commander?” Laudine asked.

  “For Captain Burns’s squad. Captain Burns, see these four pit traps spread along the line of advance?”

  Bridget nodded, brow furrowed.

  “I want you to make them invisible. It’ll be difficult, so work in teams of two per trap.”

  “But, like, Commander, won’t the opposing team get really hurt if they fall down them?” Gretchen asked.

  “They’re just enchanted holes. If you fall in, nothing happens to you, except you’re trapped until the end of battle.”

  “Oh.”

  Augum trailed his finger along the map. “Captain Burns, I want you to then lead your squad east through the forest, past the ruins, across the river, and around the valley—but stay in the forest and remain silent. If you run into resistance, neutralize them. Conserve your energy.” He made eye contact with Laudine and Leera. “As soon as you see Captain Burns’s squad, I want you to prepare for an attack—but wait another moment.”

  “Wait for what?” Leera asked.

  “For Darkness.” It was the perfect spell for the occasion, as each casting created a small cloud of total darkness. It was a 5th degree masterpiece of arcanery that, when combined in force, should completely befuddle the enemy, giving his team the opportunity to get inside the keep.

  “That’s brilliant,” Bridget said. “We’ll cast it from the tree line. It looks like we’ll be just in range.

  “Exactly. Captain Jones, Captain Lavo—as soon as you see those clouds, run in there with your squads and do what you can to overwhelm the opposition. Cause confusion and absorb their arcane stamina.”

  “Well, heck,” the burly female soldier who had carried Augum said. “With that darkness, we may even get in a hit or two
.”

  “If we don’t smack each other,” another soldier said, and the men and women of the guard chortled.

  “Might very well happen,” Augum muttered. He placed his gaze on Bridget. “A moment after the squads attack, I want you to lead your squad in with a follow-up attack, but do it from the rear of the keep. Use your First Offensive to blow a hole through the pike wall here and enter the courtyard.” He circled the rear of the keep for emphasis. “You’ll get wet and stinky going through the moat.”

  “We can levitate each other across with Telekinesis,” Bridget suggested.

  “If you have enough arcane stamina, sure, but conserve as much as you can. Now, with your Darkness clouds hanging about, you should be able to reach the bottom of the keep without being seen.”

  “But the entrance is on the front of the keep,” Bridget said. “And those corridors are narrow. It’ll be black and clogged—”

  “I don’t want you going through the front door. I want you in the rear of the keep, working together to telekinetically hoist each other in through the high windows, or maybe even onto the roof, depending on your stamina at that point.”

  Bridget glanced between their classmates. “If we don’t meet too much opposition, we might have it in us to get someone on that roof pretty quickly.”

  “From there, use Telekinesis or Push to launch the flag as far as you can. Then make a run for the flag. Remember, they can’t touch it. To extend your stamina, use Confusion as much as possible since it yields a high impact and costs little stamina. It’ll buy you time, which is precious for this.” Plus, it was only a 4th degree spell that required a single activation word, making it quick in battle.

  Caireen grimaced. “Commander, are you really planning on defending the keep with just the two of us and five archers?”

  “I am. A wise defense can keep ten times its number at bay.” He swept his gaze over their tense faces. “Captains, any spare time you have out there use to your advantage. But remember, this is a sprint. Make it quick or we’ll lose.”

  A distant horn blasted as a flare shot into the center of the dim cavern.

  “That’s our signal. Everyone know what to do?”

  “Yes, Commander!” they shouted.

  “Excellent. Good luck.”

  They dispersed. Bridget led their 7th degree classmates to the pit traps while Leera and Laudine led the five soldiers and ten 1st degree students east. Out of the four healers, three went with them, and Kiwi remained behind with Augum’s group. As per the rules, interaction with healers was not allowed, for they were also on-location combat judges. She merely hovered nearby, watching with her intelligent almond-shaped eyes.

  “Bold plan,” Caireen said as she and the archers crossed the small bridge to the keep. Augum winced with every step as he tried to keep up.

  “Bold or very foolish, I can’t tell which yet.” He felt a queasy stir of nausea. The lack of sleep and the pain were taking their toll.

  He stopped after crossing the bridge and examined its fittings. An idea came to him. “Archers, take up your places inside the keep. Stay hidden and silent. Expect Darkness attacks. If they happen, use your ears and shoot at doorways.”

  “You got it, Commander Stone,” said one of the male archers. Before they ran off, he added, “All jests aside, and as young as you are, it is a privilege to be commanded by a Hero of the Resistance.”

  Augum gave a grateful nod, and the archers hurried into the keep. He turned his attention to the bridge. “Caireen, give me a hand here. Help me telekinetically lift this off its moorings.”

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s the same size as the entrance. I want to seal it.”

  “Huh. That … that could actually work.”

  “Three, two, one—pull!”

  Augum and Caireen telekinetically yanked the wooden slat bridge off its moorings and jammed it into the entranceway with a grinding crash. He then kneeled before it, only to groan as he felt the wrenching tear of another suture pulling loose. A woozy sensation passed through him as the warm flow of blood increased.

  “You all right?” Caireen asked, watching him.

  “Completely fine.” Mrs. Stone had trained him to cast through pain, and cast he did, summoning the appropriate arcane energies while envisioning how the tendrils would interact with the pike wall and the bridge. He splayed his fingers over the seam and succinctly spoke the sacred words that would trigger the 6th degree spell known as Seal. “Obdura del boundera sen.” Each syllable triggered and interacted with the precise thought pattern that formed the spell. But it did not conclude there. Now that Augum’s fingers were attached to the arcane ether, he began linking the wooden pike wall and the slat bridge with arcane tendrils, much like sewing sutures into flesh, and tugged on each tendril after a completion to ensure a tight seam. Caireen, meanwhile, worked from the other side. Augum didn’t make the weaving too complicated because no one on the other team could cast Disenchant, seeing as it was more than two degrees beyond their expertise and thus an illegal spell.

  “Thought of your back while doing that sewing job, didn’t you?” Caireen asked cheekily once they had finished, smoothing her amber robe.

  “I might have, though I took no pleasure from it.”

  “I certainly hope not. Now what?”

  “Now we cast two Shield Runes each, two at the entrance and two on the interior steps between the second and third floors. The enemy will have to waste precious time destroying them with successive First Offensive castings. Then we go on up to the roof and guard the flag.”

  They followed through on the plan, casting two precise Shield Runes at the gaping doorway of the keep. Caireen’s lightning rune was lighter than Augum’s, but just as large and dense. Then they moved to the narrow stairs between floors two and three. Augum cast his first, jamming the Shield Rune between walls. Once Augum had moved higher, Caireen cast hers a few stairs up from his.

  “That’ll slow them down all right,” Caireen said.

  They made their way upstairs, declaring they were coming through so the archers wouldn’t shoot at them. On the third story, a set of narrow stairs led up to a trap door that opened to the roof. And in the center of that creneled roof stood the lone flag pole. The rules did not allow them to cast arcanery on the flag or secure it in any way.

  “Keep an eye on the flag at all times,” he told Caireen, ducking between crenels. “Their best chance will be to telekinetically snatch it from under our noses while we’re distracted or confused. And keep your Mind Armor sharp.” Besides Shield, the 3rd degree spell Mind Armor was a warlock’s most potent defense, for it blocked arcane mind spell attacks such as Fear, Confusion, Deafness, Mute, Slow, Sleep, and Paralyze—as long as they were not cast by a warlock more than a few degrees higher than one’s own degree. Defending with Mind Armor used up precious arcane stamina, which was precisely how successive cerebral attacks eventually penetrated.

  As Augum watched the distance, his mind turned to his foe. Eric was calculating, methodical and conservative. He would expect him to use traditional warlock warfare techniques The Grizzly had taught them, which likely meant flanking attacks of two groups in case one failed. He particularly suspected flanking because that had been the topic of this morning’s Military Strategy class, and Eric likely thought it’s what The Grizzly expected him to do to show he was a good commander. If Eric did split his forces and one of those forces met Augum’s larger force, his team would easily neutralize Eric’s.

  Time bled by. The flag above them ruffled in a light wind that should have been impossible in a cavern like this, except Augum knew the weather was enchanted, like in his own castle Training Cavern.

  “Watch the trees,” Augum whispered, not liking the quiet.

  “Augum, the floor,” Caireen replied, voice full of alarm.

  Augum glanced down to see a small puddle of blood that had dripped through his robe. Shoot, too many sutures had come undone. No wonder he was feeling so woozy.

/>   “You need a healer. Let me call down for Kiwi—”

  “I’ll be fine. We can do this.” He gritted his teeth. Unlike everything else of late, he would not fail at this.

  A cry of alarm went up from the woods in front of them, followed by another. “Invisible pit traps!” a familiar musical voice called from the forest.

  “That’s Katrina’s voice,” Augum whispered. That meant her squad of 7th degrees were likely in tow.

  “Let’s watch them figure out how to get in,” Caireen said.

  Augum leaned his head over the stairway hole and hissed down, “7th degrees inbound, left flank. Stay low.”

  “7th degrees inbound, left flank, stay low,” one of his archers repeated in a whisper, and so it went all the way down the keep.

  Augum focused back on the field of battle. “Movement, left flank,” he whispered, squinting. “I think they’re investigating before they charge.”

  Distant, cacophonous shouts reached them from the other keep.

  “Seems our attack has begun,” he said.

  “Let’s hope they nab that flag before these ones figure out how few of us are here,” Caireen replied.

  “As far as the enemy is concerned, the keep is abandoned.” He wondered how Katrina would deal with the sealed bridge.

  The enemy group of 1st degree students gave a war cry from the forest and charged, the archers covering their backs from the woods.

  “1st degrees inbound, left flank, covered by archers,” Augum whispered, and Caireen repeated the words for him down the trap door so he could keep his eyes on the field. But where was their captain, Elizabeth? And where was their archer captain, Isaac? If anyone knew Augum’s strategies, it was Isaac, as they had fought alongside in the Legion War.

  “Movement, right flank,” Caireen whispered. “Looks like the 7th degrees are waiting and watching.”

  Good, wait and watch, fools, Augum thought.

  The 1st degrees, still roaring their war cries, reached the moat … only to find a sealed bridge. They glanced around, confused and cringing as if expecting a slaughter.