Runic apprentice, p.11
Runic Apprentice, page 11
part #1 of The Rune Mystic Series
Of course, any mage with detect magic would see a man-sized glob of magic fifteen feet up on a tree, which would be a dead giveaway. It was hardly a perfect hiding spot. Still, he was counting on the idea of the fact people usually didn’t look up. Misdirection was all he had at that point, he was still just a newbie apprentice. Any kind of straight forward duel, he’d lose, unless he ran into one of the three other newbies, then he might have a chance to live a few seconds, until any other mage saw them fighting out in the open.
It was ten seconds after the gong, when up in the tree he activated his fifth and final spell, which would allow him to see and detect magic. Then he waited. The biggest advantage a rune mage had was they could multiple cast by focusing on two runes, and there was no vocal or semantic component to spell casting.
That didn’t help him overly much when it came to his own spells, he simply didn’t have magic strong enough yet, nor did he know enough spells. However, that would help him in an ambush. Even simple battle spells of other mages took a second or two to cast, his hope was to take them down with surprise, before they could cast.
If he ran into a powerful mage first thing, even that wouldn’t help, because their shield would withstand far too many hits from a sword before falling, for him to win. Another apprentice however… well he could swing his sword a whole lot of times a second with his speed enhancement.
With his enhanced perceptions the next thirty seconds felt like an age. Then he heard someone plowing through the mock forest, disturbing the brush and making a whole lot of noise in an all-out headlong rush. A split second later he made out the black robes against the greens and browns of the forest. He almost leapt down, but then noticed his new quarry was being chased, which was why the apprentice was running with no thought to any kind of stealth.
His eyes picked out a second black robe, twenty feet behind the other. The second made a gesture and barked a word, and the runner cried out and dove to the ground as the spell impacted his shield.
The downed man muttered an impolite word as he rolled back to his feet and turned, right past Olin’s tree.
The second mage stopped just fifteen feet away from the tree, and grimaced as he started to cast another spell. His quarry started to cast as well, and Olin supposed the apprentice just couldn’t run anymore, or had decided, perhaps foolishly, to take the more powerful mage on.
He knew the chaser was stronger, with his detect magic.
A death spell leapt from both of them at the same time. The runner’s spell fizzled out against the stronger mage’s shields, and the stronger mage’s spell took a moment, but eventually ate through the runner’s shields. The man screamed, and the arena at that point preserved the man’s life and marked him with a red illusion.
At that point, it was a matter of honor, no marked person would continue to fight, or be attacked by others. It was the rule.
The man sneered, “I trust you’ve learned your lesson, don’t do it again.”
He had no idea what that was about, without context, but he waited for the second mage to turn around, as the red-marked one stood up and moved toward the stands to watch the rest of the competition. Perhaps the one good thing about being knocked out early, learning through observation.
As soon as the man unknowingly showed Olin his back, Olin crouched and leapt from the branch with a strong leap. He bent one leg, and as he closed he kicked out. Unlike in a real situation, he avoided kicking the death mage’s head or neck, the protections on the arena were strong, but couldn’t compensate for stupidity, at least when it came to physical violence, and he wasn’t going to become a murderer in his first fight.
Regardless, the kick to the death mage’s upper back sent him tumbling to the ground with a loud scream of shock. His own shield protected him from true harm, but death magic shields weren’t nearly as effective against physical attacks as an earth mage’s was. Even without taking direct harm, physics was still effective, and the mage’s shield, and therefore the mage took on the kick’s momentum. It was the advantage of a warrior mage, one who used physical attacks, swords, and the like.
Olin didn’t need more magic than his opponent, not when he was proficient in physical fighting, which would drain his opponent’s magic. Granted, it would’ve been less effective against an earth mage, but against a death mage he had a real chance.
His feet had barely reached the ground after his kick, when the flat of his practice sword’s blade slammed into the mage’s back. He leapt onto the mage’s back, and he drove the dagger into his side. Not so incidentally, it also kept the mage on his face. It was very hard to speak or gesture a spell much less hit someone that was pinning you down on your stomach.
The death mage’s shields failed after the fifth hit, which happened within two seconds, and he cried out as the blunt blade slammed into his body with a crunch of bone.
He winced, pretty sure he’d just broken the guy’s rib, but on the good side he’d be healed in a few minutes, when he left the arena grounds. His quarry was also red, just a few seconds after the other one.
He stood and leapt back up into the tree in a single bound, and he held back a small chuckle as the pissed off death mage looked around with a confused look on his face, obviously searching for his killer. Then the black-robed man finally looked up, and his eyes widened. He was startled, when the death mage let out a laugh.
“Damnit, taken out by the newbie, I’ll never live it down. Darren by the way, young Olin.”
He nodded back in greeting, and he waited for the man to walk out of the forest.
He hunkered back down against the tree trunk, and the chameleon spell worked its magic. He waited for a few minutes, cries and spells of power could be heard around the arena, from close by to over a hundred yards away in the mock village.
He wondered how Lia was doing. He knew she had a lot of power, she stood out that way and was even a match for mages years older than her. But she still lacked the experience of long years of fighting in the competitions, and that would make a difference.
He also knew, even if he lasted a long time in his spot, he wouldn’t be considered one of the top mages. How many fights he was in, how many kills he had, was weighed far more heavily in the top ten results than how long he stayed in, though that counted too.
Regardless, he was pretty much satisfied he wouldn’t come in dead last, a number of his opponents had died without taking out another mage first, just in the first few moments of the contest. That didn’t mean he was giving up, but he was taking a realistic view of the situation. It’d only been a few minutes since the competition started, and the magical drain of the five spells was taking a toll. He’d already exhausted close to an eighth of his magic.
There were two major flaws in his current plan. One, he’d run out of magic before a half an hour passed, and two, he was supposed to be learning tactics of other mages, and he couldn’t see a blasted thing going on around him. He guessed not many mages would choose the very edge of the forest as a good place to either snipe or be part of the action.
He did have a good view of the empty field, being near the edge, but not one mage had chosen that as the place to be, understandably so.
That in itself was good information, but not enough. The one fight he did witness had been a simple brutal exercise of who was more powerful, with no subtlety. He didn’t want to go out by running out of magic, and perhaps getting hit by something he didn’t even see coming, because he could no longer see the magic around him. Still, running headlong toward danger didn’t seem wise either.
He looked toward the north end of the arena. He knew the forest went pretty much all the way to the mock village. After a few moments thought, he leapt from his tree to the next, then to the next, as he moved toward the village in the treetops.
He was almost halfway there, close to the center of the forest, when a ball of fire flew right by his face, close enough he’d felt the heat from it. The fireball exploded spectacularly against the tree behind him, and he saw the arena’s magic rise up and snuff the fire out so quickly the tree was barely singed.
He looked around quickly, and he spotted the mage, mostly thanks to the vector of the fireball. He also figured out the only reason it had missed was he’d unknowingly dodged at the last moment, to get a stronger grip on a branch in preparation for his next leap.
He imagined sniping fireballs from the trees was a good tactic, unless of course, you missed the target.
He crouched and leapt in the mage’s direction. The fire mage’s tree was too far to reach, but he pulled out his dagger and whipped it at the mage’s torso at the greatest height of his jumping arc. He braced himself and rolled forward as he landed, only to extend his legs and leap up into the mage’s tree, sword leading.
He got a fireball in the face for his efforts, and his magic drained alarmingly fast, but his shields held long enough for him to punch the mage right in the face with the pommel of his sword.
The fire mage’s shields held, but his attack fizzled as he was thrown off the branch of the tree.
He felt rather bloodthirsty, shockingly so, as he sprang off the branch the mage had just recently perched on, and landed on the mage’s stomach. His sword whistled though the air and slammed into the mage’s shields.
He lifted it to do so again, but before he could finish the attack he was blindsided by another fireball that blasted through his weakened shields, then exploded. He went flying with a loud cry of shock and pain, and while the arena put it out quickly, he probably had first degree burns on his face, and had lost most of his hair.
He was also glowing red, and he sighed as he sheathed his practice sword.
The man smirked, “Not bad kid, but try to remember fire mages work in teams.”
Crap, he’d been told that before, avoid the fire mages, and about teams in the arena. He’d been stupid to assume the sniper fire mage was working alone. He should have studied the situation a few seconds longer.
He heard feminine laughter, and looked up and to the right, and saw a second mage in red robes and fiery hair smirking down at him. He wondered how he’d missed her, with flaming red hair and bright red robes, against brown and green, but a second later there was just a vague outline of magic, she’d been under the spell chameleon, like he had. Dumbass, it was a fire spell, of course she wasn’t waving a red flag giving away her position.
He took a second to tighten his channeling, dropping the other spells. He was already lower than he liked, lower than when he stopped training his magic at night, and quite fatigued. No point in keeping the speed, strength, and other spells going now that he was out.
On the good side, he got to watch the rest of the match from the stands, once he was healed that is, which as a rune mage he just did himself. He learned a few things. For one, Lia was as terrifying as she was beautiful, and absolutely ruthless with her magic. Fire mages went down in blasts of water, death mages were taken down with life, earth mages with air spells of suffocation, and she was just magnificent, seemingly using the other mages’ weaknesses against them without forethought.
Until she ran into a team of life mages, all wielding swords. Still, she’d done better and lasted longer than any other apprentice, and he was proud of her for that.
He wasn’t sure what had killed Sam, he was already in the stands when he got there.
A rune mage’s weakness was their stuff, take it and they were helpless, a harsh balance to their advantages of multi-casting and access to all six spheres, but he was also figuring out their anemic numbers were a weakness as well. He learned no mage was an island to themselves, as he saw very powerful master mages taken apart by simple team tactics of several weaker mages. Sure, in real life, in a war, they’d be able to team up and would be a part of that, but in the towers where it was forbidden, they couldn’t do that. In short, they were kind of screwed in the competitions, because it was discouraged to associate with other towers outside of mages on missions.
Teaming up with mages of other disciplines would be associating.
Still, there had to be a way to win, once he had the magic to burn. Even against teams. He wasn’t willing to give up, just because the odds against teams were stacked against him. At some point, he’d be able to team with Lia, maybe in a few months. That would help, but it would still just be two against many.
“What happened to you?”
Sam shrugged, “Drowned by a water mage, before I even reached the village.”
He wondered about Sam’s attitude, maybe he’d come to the same conclusion about their chances in competition, that he did just a moment ago, and Sam had given up. Sam didn’t even look like he cared.
The competition finished up with a six-person fire mage team, that had most likely started out with more people. Regardless, they quickly turned on each other when they realized they were all that was left, and Olin’s first monthly competition came to an end.
Chapter Fourteen
The arena had seven sections of seating for the seven towers in the stands, even the spectators were kept apart. There was also an eighth section for non-mage visitors, on the north side of the stands, between the earth and water towers, directly across from the rune section. The arena was huge, and he couldn’t really make out the queen at all until they were more than halfway across the room, outside of her light blonde hair which shone in the lighting.
Queen Delphine was around forty at a guess, five foot six in height, with light blonde hair and blue eyes. She wore an elaborate purple dress that must take a whole platoon of maids to get on, which marked her as noble, and the crown on her head marked her as queen. The echoes of her youthful attractiveness were still present, and she looked in good shape.
Next to her, sat the sixteen-year-old heir, Princess Vida, who had identical light blonde hair and blue eyes to her mother. Their faces were also similar in places, but the young princess had more severe cheekbones, perhaps inherited from her father the late king, which gave her a more severe beauty, or would once she’d fully matured. She was also in an elaborate blue dress that looked far too uncomfortable.
It was just him, Cassandra, Elisha the earth tower mistress with her two new charges, and lastly Aubrey, the life tower mistress, accompanying Caley, as the four of them were to give their oaths directly to the queen.
As they got even closer, he could tell the princess would rather be just about anywhere else. He guessed she was still mourning her father’s death, but he couldn’t really be sure. There were also six mages safeguarding the queen and princess, as for the young prince, he wasn’t present.
The queen smiled gently as they approached, but it was political in nature, and didn’t reach her eyes. Not that he blamed her, perhaps she was normally kind and genuine, but was also grieving her loss. It’d only been two weeks after all.
He bowed when everyone else did. He’d been given the rules, no talking to royalty, unless talked to first, and even then, only if asked a direct question. A statement or observation by the queen wouldn’t be an invitation for him to share his own opinion, or even open his mouth.
Delphine said, “Greetings. Four new apprentices this month?”
Aubrey answered, “Yes, your majesty.”
Delphine nodded, “Very well, you four are here of your own free will?”
Not that he was given a real choice, being killed or having his magic suppressed being the only other two choices, but technically he supposed it was true.
He nodded, as did the others.
Delphine said, “Out loud please.”
“Yes, your majesty,” they said together.
Delphine nodded at Aubrey, given the queen’s body language it was clear she was the most comfortable with the life tower mistress.
Aubrey said, “Repeat after me. I, say your name.”
He said, “I, Olin,” while the other three said their own names. Then Aubrey continued in a grave voice, and the four of them followed along, “Do swear to serve the towers and the crown, and to safeguard and protect the lives of the royal family of Reton Kingdom.”
It was a short oath, but shockingly direct and absolute. It was no wonder that he hadn’t heard it until he was in front of the queen and put on the spot. He had no doubt the mages were managed by the royal family, between the rules that kept the towers from talking overmuch between each other, and everything else he’d seen.
He just wasn’t sure they were entirely wrong to do so. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it’d kept the peace for hundreds of years. The royal family was also well thought of by the commoners, and taxing was minimal.
The queen responded, “I accept your oaths, and welcome you. Please return to your towers, I have need to speak with your mistresses in private.”
He wasn’t sure if it was necessary, but he bowed before he turned around and walked away. It was all a bit intimidating to be honest. He was usually a confident young man, but he was brought up as a simple village blacksmith, he had no idea as of yet how to act around royalty. Outside of the instructions and rules to keep his mouth shut unless asked a question, that is.
Lia giggled, “So, you forgot the team thing?”
They were in the living room on the bottom floor of the tower, and Lia and Sam had asked him to describe what happened.
He nodded, “I suppose I was too focused on my prey. I’m pretty sure I might’ve gotten him too, before he could get off another spell. Still, I was almost out of magic, just holding my spells fifteen minutes and being hit by his fireball. I’d have been killed in the next encounter anyway, most likely.”
Sam said, “Doesn’t sound like there was much you could’ve done about it, either way.”
He shrugged, “Maybe. I would’ve tried to dodge while taking him down, and then sought cover. It might not have worked, but I’d have felt better about it if I’d noticed she was there.”
