Creation mage 8 war mage.., p.1
Creation Mage 8 (War Mage Academy), page 1
Creation Mage 8
War Mage Academy 8
Dante King
Copyright © 2021 by Dante King
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
v01
Free harem books!
Join my email newsletter to receive free ebooks of the epic fantasy novels, Dragon Atlas and Rune Mage.
Like audiobooks? Sign up to my newsletter for a free audiobook of Immortal Swordslinger #1.
Support Dante on Patreon & Hang out on Discord!
Read books before they’re on Amazon, see exclusive NSFW artwork, and check out sneak peeks into my writing process. Become a Patron today at: https://geni.us/DanteKingPatreon
Hang out with me on Discord
Contents
Free harem books!
Support Dante on Patreon & Hang out on Discord!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Facebook Fan Group
Follow me on Amazon
Immortal Swordslinger
Bone Lord
Chapter 1
“I’ve got to say, friend,” said the burly Earth Elemental Rick Hammersmith, lying on his back in the middle of the courtyard where I had just bowled his giant ass over, “that tower of your parents really is something.”
I held out my hand and helped my big friend to his feet. I looked up, my gaze following the path that Rick’s bright green eyes were taking.
The Stronghold of the Twin Spirits was a mighty, awe-inspiring edifice with two mountainous buttresses that straddled a river like the legs of some monumentally massive and stony golem. The river wended its way through the fortress, through a colossal portcullis, and flowed out to the sea.
The actual castle part of the Stronghold was an enormous keep of strange, almost opaque obsidian-like rock. The structure drew the eye and held it in a fist of volcanic glass mixed with snow and ice, mercury and adamantine rock. To call the castle imposing would not really have begun to do the place justice. It made Orthanc look like a sandcastle—and not even a good sandcastle at that.
With sides so sheer and smooth that I doubted even the most suicidal and sticky-fingered gecko would have been able to find a purchase on them, the tower rose up and up and up. It was black and silver veined—a color scheme I was beginning to see as synonymous with chaos magic—like obsidian shot through with mercury. It contained a series of incredible arching windows that must have given one hell of a view across the sea. It must have risen a good five hundred feet, so that the top of it was little more than a twinkling sliver high up in the heavens.
The Stronghold was, at the end of the day, the most incredible piece of craftsmanship that I had ever seen.
Inside, the staggering and dramatic wall was cornered by round watchtowers that glimmered with a ghostly silver eldritch light. Black and white stalagmite fortifications sat on the very boundary between man-made and natural so that I couldn’t say with any real confidence which one they might be.
All in all, my mom and dad’s old stomping ground, their mage equivalent of the Little Rascals’ clubhouse, looked like the Disney castle might have looked like had old Walt and his design team had more of a penchant for strong acid and gothic architecture.
“Yeah,” Rick rumbled again. “Yeah, it sure is… big.”
I gave a little snort and slapped the solid islander on the shoulder. “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, Rick, but your powers of description never cease to dazzle me.”
Rick glanced up at the mammoth construction once more. “Well, it is big.”
“A troll is big, Rick,” said Nigel Windmaker, one of my other frat brothers and a Wind Mage. “This place is… vast. Titanic. Colossal. Epic.”
Rick shrugged non-committedly. “Potato tomato,” he said in his deep bass voice as he wandered off to help himself to a sandwich from a nearby table.
Damien Davis, Fire Mage and free-running extraordinaire, who had been sitting on the sideline of the open practice arena, smacked his palm into his forehead.
Nigel, who was as smart as a brain omelet and couldn’t stand to see any of his friends travel through life under any cloud of ignorance of any kind, opened his mouth to correct Rick.
“The saying goes, ‘po-tay-to, po-tah-to’, Rick,” our resident bookworm and genius said kindly.
Rick turned from the table he had been perusing and raised a big eyebrow at Nigel. Then, he held up a sandwich in his meaty hand.
“Po-tay-to, to-mah-to,” he said exaggeratedly. “Also, there’s ham, lettuce, and braised magpie in this one. And lots of satyr sauce too.”
Nigel went red, and Bradley Flamewalker burst out laughing.
It had been a full ten days since I, and all those who had been involved in our little adventurous excursion into the Spectral Realm, had been led by Admiral Isobel Galeflint to the Stronghold of the Twin Spirits. We had traveled for five relaxed days, after the great sea battle we had undergone with the forces of the Arcane Council, before arriving at my parents’ old mustering station, deep within the strange place that was the Spectral Realm.
When we arrived, we met a whole host of gathering forces from all over the Kingdom of Avalonia and beyond. There had been representatives of all sorts of creatures, magic-users, and societies, who were sympathetic to the cause being championed by Reginald Chaosbane—namely, to disrupt the hold that the Arcane Council seemed to have over Queen Hagatha and save the Universal Magic.
Most notable of those was the Prophet King of the Gemstone Elementals. He had not only brought a formidable contingent of his Gemstone warriors, but also dropped the bomb that he expected me, Justin Mauler, to make a wife of his daughter, Alura.
From the moment that we had stepped foot into the Stronghold, everything had become a blur of activity. There had been planning, mustering, organizing, designating, and all the other boring logistical items that they always make a montage of in the movies, out of fear that audiences will fall into comas if they don’t.
Happily, things had settled down over the last couple of days. I, along with most of my close companions, had returned to the more pressing and enjoyable business of training, sparring, and practicing spells.
There was a whole group of us—those who had been in this thing from the beginning and those who might have been considered the key players in this drama we were living—making use of an inner courtyard. Outside, in the peripheral parade grounds, other soldiers and mages were being put through their paces by their respective commanders. I could hear the clash of weapons on armor and the fizz and crackle of spells.
I had been surprised by just how many mages had flocked to Reginald Chaosbane’s summons.
When I had mentioned this out loud, Madame Xel had taken me under her seductively perfumed wing and said, “The Twin Spirits weren’t really just two people, two powerful mages, Justin, you have to realize that.”
“What do you mean?” I had asked, frowning slightly.
“As incredibly talented and powerful as your parents were, the Twin Spirits was a movement too.”
“Like the Resistance?” I blurted before I could stop myself. I had been getting better the longer I had lived in this supernatural world, but every now and again, some irresistible Earthly comparison popped into my mind which I couldn’t help but voice.
Madame Xel had given me a blank stare, and I had signaled for her to ignore me and carry on.
“You shouldn’t be surprised that there are so many here,” she had continued. “Take comfort in the fact that all these brave mages and folk from many different worlds can be trusted to lend you their support.”
I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my arm, puffed out my cheeks, and grinned around at my assembled friends. Along with my fraternity brothers, most of my other close crew were all there.
I glanced over to see Cecilia Chillgrave, Enwyn Emberskull, Janet Thunderstone, and Alura, the Gemstone Princess. They were all sitting together in the sunny courtyard.
The sensuous Madame Xel was deep in conversation with her gypsy-looking friend, Odette Scaleblade. The former priestess and fugitive, Mallory Entwistle, sat nearby listening attentively to the conversation of the succubus and the dragonkin.
Isobel Galeflint was strolling backward and forward, twirling a cutlass around in a distracted and thoughtful fashion. At her heels padded none other than Felicity, the Changeling, who was currently inhabiting her sleek and deadly looking sabertooth tiger form.
The inimitable Chaosbanes were, mostly, all present, except for the saucy Aunt Ruth and the cantankerous Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock. Leah, Mort, Igor, and Reginald were all on their feet and running through an absurd collection of Swedish exercises.
“It is b
“I guess you can’t deny it,” I said, hefting my staff in my hand and surreptitiously running my eyes over the sexy-ass pirate.
Although she had bright crimson, wavy hair that fell around her face in a very fetching devil-may-care way, there was something undeniably Carmen Electra-like about her—and I’d always had time for a picture of Carmen Electra when I was a younger man. She was dressed today in her usual leather outfit that was part black and gold brocaded admiral’s jacket, part bikini, part lingerie, and part dominatrix bondage outfit.
“I sure would like to know what’s at the top of that tower, though,” Isobel said. “A mast like that would have one hell of a crow’s nest.”
“I told you last week when we first got here, Isobel,” I said. “On the very top of that highest tower is a private place, a secret little plateau that only my mom and dad were allowed access to. It’s where they would go to discuss their most important and secretive business.”
Isobel dropped me a lascivious wink, the sort of wink that should have had my belt unbuckling itself.
“I’m just saying that there must be a hell of a view waiting up there,” she said. “You better promise that if you ever head up there, that you’ll take me too. And I’ll promise to make the view just that little bit more exceptional.”
“Less chatty, more fighty,” Damien said from where he was lounging in a chair on the sidelines.
“Hey man,” I said, turning my attention to the Los Angeles-raised Fire Mage, “I’m ready when you are.”
Damien waved a dismissive hand. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m still smarting after last night. We may have bested those ifrits in the end, but those motherfuckers know how to throw a punch!”
“Not to mention a Fireball,” I chuckled as I recalled the scrap that me and the frat boys had got into on the previous evening. It had been nothing serious. We had been drinking in an al fresco makeshift bar Isobel Galeflint’s more enterprising crew members had set up. There’d been nothing in it really, just a clashing of testosterone and alcohol. Damien had run his mouth a little too freely after more shots of ghoul venom than was strictly advisable. He’d then turned into a fist magnet for a couple of ifrits drinking on the table next to us.
“That’s right!” Damien said with a reminiscent smile on his dial. “I remember that now! That sobered Nigel up, didn’t it? Having his pants set on fire like that.”
I laughed and turned my attention back to the rest of the crew.
“Is there anyone else interested in exchanging a little bit of friendly magic?” I asked.
Reginald Chaosbane stepped forward.
“I accept your challenge, Mr. Mauler, mate,” he said. He was hopping from one foot to the other and, as I watched, he performed a series of shadow boxing techniques that would have been cutting edge, maybe, in the 1920s.
“Uh, we’re just practicing though, right, sir?” I asked.
“Of course, of course, of course!” Reginald said. “And, seeing as we are practicing, we shall practice unfairly—imitating life as it all too often is.”
He was dressed in his usual black leather pants, billowing shirt, and piratical boots. Due to the heat slowly building in the courtyard, he had removed his faded crimson coat. He was also wearing a bandana around his head, his longish hair pushed back from his face.
“Mortimer!” Reginald said as he stretched this way and that, like a caricature of a gymnast. “Igor!”
There was a muffled snorting grunt from over where Reginald had sprung up from. Leah had just dug her elbow into the side of Igor, who appeared to have nodded off under the shade of an umbrella.
“What!” he screamed sharply. “What? Where the hell am I? What? Oh… right. How can I help?”
Leah pointed to where Reginald and I stood staring at Igor. “You’re wanted for a friendly magical mix-up, cousin,” said the pink-haired female member of the Chaosbane clan.
“Ah, yes, of course,” Igor said. “Not a worry, not a worry. Coming, Reggie!”
Igor heaved his shabby self out of the chair, with a little help from the tall, pale figure of Mortimer, and ambled over to us. As the pair of family members approached, I noticed a fine stream of bright yellow powder emanating from one of the pockets of Igor’s ubiquitous shabby duster coat.
“What are we going for here?” I asked. “A little two-on-two? Because, if we are, I’d like to shotgun Mort… or you, Reginald.”
Igor looked blearily around, as if expecting to see some more people.
“Oh,” he said dryly. “Oh, that’s nice, I don’t think. What are you trying to say, Justin, eh? You don’t trust my skills as a war mage?”
“No, no, I know you’re a capable fighter, Igor,” I said. “I’m not saying that at all.”
Igor looked mollified.
“I’m saying that I don’t trust you to remember who you are, what team you’re on, what you’re doing here, or a combination of all three of those things,” I finished.
Igor’s bloodshot eyes narrowed. Then he hiccuped. “Well, yes, I suppose that is a justifiable point, old boy, now that you mention it.”
Reginald motioned for Igor to be quiet and then said to me, “I trust, Mr. Mauler, that you recall what I told you about why all the assembled mages and warriors have joined us here?”
I nodded. “I do, sir.”
“And?” Reginald prompted me, just as if we were back at the Academy and he was taking a class.
“You said that they could not imagine nothing, so they imagined the downfall of the Arcane Council and the freeing of the puppet Empress. You seemed to think that this notion excited them, sir.”
Reginald Chaosbane pulled one of his many flasks out from one of his voluminous sleeves and took a long, slow swig.
“Blimey, but I do have a way with words when it comes to dramatic moments, don’t I?” he said musingly.
“Uh, yes, I suppose you do, sir,” I said dutifully.
“Quite, quite!” Reginald said, slapping me on the shoulder. “Excellent powers of recall, that man! Tell me, did I mention how very few people there are who actually can imagine nothing?”
“Uh, yes,” I said, wondering where the fuck Reginald was going with this line of enquiry. “You said that most people imagine a plain color—black or white or deep blue. You said it’s quite the stretch to picture nothing at all, sir.”
“I always imagine a nice tranquil purple, almost a lilac, when I imagine nothing,” said Mort politely.
“Well, that’s because you’re such an ass, Mortimer—the family’s been saying it for years,” Igor said blithely.
Mort, one of the most infamous and feared bounty hunters in all the Avalonian Kingdom, sighed and shuffled his feet.
“What’s your point, sir?” I asked, directing the question at the headmaster.
“My point?” Reginald said. “My point… Well, my point is, my potent Creation Mage friend, that you should try and keep that same nothing at the forefront of your mind—as a reminder and a warning. A warning of what will befall all things and everyone in this whole wide, wonderful, buggered up universe of ours if we should fail. It should be a reminder of how a true war mage should operate—caring nothing for their individual fate. Keep your mind full of that calming lilac that Mort pictures when he thinks of nothing, Mr. Mauler. Do not fear. Press on, press on.”
“That sounded very Yoda-like, sir,” I said.
“Oh, that little green chap!” Igor said, blinking like an owl. “Yes, it did a bit, didn’t it? Very mystical. You know, of all the earthlings that I’ve ever met, all of them seem to think that he’s nothing more than a fictitious character, but I could have sworn that I was down the pub not so long ago and—”
“Zip those lips, cousin,” Reginald said amiably. “Let us practice. Oblivion for all beckons.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing for free,” Igor said as he rolled up the sleeves of his duster. “No matter how much time passes or how long it takes us to achieve our goals, no matter what insanity takes place in the interim, there are some things I’ll simply never allow to be assigned to oblivion: fifty-year-old yeti-made whisky and the powdered roots of the humble crowcane plant.”
