David Niemitz
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Guild Mage 73
🕑 Added 2025-01-16 15:27:36 +0000 UTCChapter 73: Defense in Depth
Lady Julianne had called Sophie into her sitting room to sign as a witness, and when Liv left to go prepare, the lady’s maid followed her into the hall.
“Keep my husband safe,” Sophie demanded, before Liv could head toward her rooms. “Please. I tried to talk him into staying here, but he wouldn’t do it.”
Piers and Tobias were two of the six castle guards who had volunteered to go with Liv, and she would have preferred they hadn’t. Tobias was a veteran, certainly, and he’d always had a kind smile for her since the afternoons they spent at Auntie Rhea’s cottage, but to Liv’s mind he should have already retired from his service – or at least stayed behind to hold the walls of the castle.
As to Piers – well, whatever bad feelings had been between Liv and Sophie twenty years ago, she felt an increasing amount of sympathy for Duchess Julianne’s lady’s maid. After the wedding, there had been a couple years when it looked like Sophie and Piers would have a family. Unfortunately, every pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, and from what Liv understood Master Cushing had ordered them to stop trying after a particularly bad incident.
“I’ll do my best,” Liv said, and tried to step past.
“Don’t do your best,” Sophie insisted, placing herself directly in Liv’s path. “Bring him back. Promise me. He’s all I have.”
Liv sighed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “It could be that I’m down in the mines, and he’s guarding camp, and I have no way to help him. But I’ll do everything I can. You have my word on that.”
“Alright, then,” Sophie said. She looked tired, and frightened. “That’ll have to be enough.”
Thora, who must have been waiting for Liv in her chambers, joined them. She placed her hand on Sophie’s shoulder. “Why don’t you walk down and give him a kiss goodbye, then,” she said. Liv mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ to her maid, and headed down the hall to her room.
Once Sophie was sent on her way, Thora helped Liv into the enchanted white leather armor that she’d had brought back from Kelthelis. They belted her wand back on over the waist of the cuirass, and Liv carried the helm tucked under her left arm: she hated wearing the thing. Everything else was comforting, but no matter how Thora braided her hair, the helm was never comfortable. When they were finished, Liv and her maid headed down the hall to the stairs, and from there out into the courtyard.
Fourteen horses were saddled and loaded down with as many supplies as the culling team could safely carry. Most of the castle staff was gathered around or, in the case of the guards on duty, looking down from the parapets.
“I’d rather you were staying here,” Liv’s mother said. She and Gretta had clearly been waiting for Liv to come out, and now Mama wrapped her up in a hug, giving her a squeeze.
“I’ve been through the shoals up north many times now,” Liv reminded her mother. “I’ll be fine.”
“That was always with your father, though, wasn’t it?” Margaret Brodbeck asked, loosening her arms enough to lean back and look her daughter in the eye.
“Which only means he’s taught me well,” Liv said, giving her a smile. “When I get back, I have to tell you something. Don’t let me forget.”
“Here, dear,” Gretta said, handing Liv a wineskin on a leather cord. “It’s filled with venison broth with wild onions from the shoals. Try to keep it warm, if you can.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Liv assured her, slinging the leather cord over her shoulder so that the flask hung on the opposite hip from her wand. She could simply redirect the waste heat from her spells to the broth.
“No cloak?” her mother asked. “You’ll freeze, dove. Harvest nights are cold.”
“Maybe a few years ago,” Liv said. “But not anymore.” Master Grenfell approached, giving her an excuse to extract herself from her mother’s arms.
“I’ve loaded your saddlebags with half a dozen pouches of ground mana-stone, and the large stone from my study,” her old teacher said. “It’s got over thirty rings in it, and you’re free to use them all if needed. You cast your normal load-out on your wand this morning?”
“Before I went down to breakfast,” Liv assured him. “Don’t worry, I’m ready.”
“So says every apprentice on their first culling,” Grenfell said. “Be smart. Listen to Matthew and Beatrice, they’ve done this before.”
“Mount up!” Matthew called across the courtyard, and the knights and guards who would be riding to Bald Peak began swinging themselves up into their saddles. Liv saw Duchess Julianne whisper something to her son, embrace him one last time, and then step back.
“I’ll be back in a few days, Mama,” Liv said. “You just keep yourself safe and inside the castle until then.” She walked over to Steria, put her foot in the stirrup, and pulled herself up. The mare danced across the courtyard, as if she’d caught the excitement in the air. Matthew and Beatrice were mounted, while one of the guards was helping Mistress Trafford up into her saddle. She was weighed down with a satchel of medical supplies that looked like it might tip her over at any moment and send her back down to the cobblestones.
Dustin, Master Forester, and Emma’s son, Rowan, had come to see her off. Liv watched her friend kiss her child on the forehead before handing him off, and wondered again if she might not convince Emma to remain behind. But if she knew anything about the huntress, she was both stubborn and determined once she’d made up her mind.
Sir Randel, the youngest of the three knights that Julianne and Henry were sending, rode out first, with two guards just behind him, to clear the way through the streets. Matthew and Triss followed, and then Emma and Liv, with Mistress Trafford, the other two knights, and four more guards bringing up the rear.
With the exception of just in front of the castle gate, few people were in the streets of Whitehill; when an eruption struck, the temple of the trinity and the castle itself were opened to the population as refuges. Those who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave their homes shuttered the windows, barred the doors, and did their best to wait out the crisis.
The castle guards had held back the crowd of townsfolk until the culling team was away, and now Liv followed the rest of the party through an aisle of men, women and children. As soon as they’d ridden past, Liv looked back over her shoulder, and saw castle guards ushering the masses into the courtyard. After that one glance, she kept her gaze ahead: first down The Hill and the west, to the town gate from which they would loop north and follow the road along the banks of the Aspen River to the mines.
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They found the edge of the shoal well before where the road forked, with the right hand route leading to the waystone on the bluff over the river, and the left hand up the mountain slope to the mines. Liv could feel the raw mana permeated the air the moment she approached, but it was Triss who called them to a halt.
“We’ll make camp here,” she said, swinging down from the saddle of her mare. “Just outside the shoal.”
“Get a ditch dug and palisades up,” Matthew commanded the guards who’d come with them. “Emma, keep watch for stone-bats or any birds of prey in the sky. Mistress Trafford, we’ll leave you here with the camp. Set up to receive wounded as best you can. Liv, what are you doing?”
While the others began setting up camp, she’d dismounted and walked into the very edge of the shoal itself. After making the trip north with her father time and again, Liv no longer needed to sit down and ignore the world to handle the surge of ambient mana.
“Getting myself acclimated,” she said. In truth, the edge of this eruption was still less potent than the shoals of the Tomb of Celris.
Matthew frowned, and strode over to her. “You should spend as little time in the rift as you can,” he said. “Every moment in there makes the danger of mana-sickness worse.”
Liv turned to regard him. “For humans, yes,” she said, after considering her words for a moment. Her father had warned her about the risks of spreading the things he’d taught her, but surely she could trust Matthew? And if she taught him to handle the wild mana of a rift, she’d be increasing his chances of survival. What finally decided her was that they didn’t have time to waste, and given what she recalled of Matthew’s magical aptitude, it could take him weeks of practice to master the technique. Later, Liv promised herself. In time for the next eruption he had to cull.
Matthew opened his mouth, hesitated, and then started again. “Can you tell me how many rings you have to work with?” he asked, instead of pressing the issue. Liv noticed that he kept himself just outside the edge of the shoal. “It’s important that I understand what you’re bringing to the table, if I’m to make good decisions.”
“Twenty-three,” Liv said, scanning the trees on the lower slopes of Bald Peak.
“Twenty-three?” Triss exclaimed. “I forgot what a perfect monster you are, Liv.” The older woman shook her head. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Eight more in here.” Liv raised her left hand, where she wore the princess’ golden rings and bracelet, linked by thin chains and set with mana-stones. “Plus the guildring, and the pommel of the wand. Call it thirty-six.”
“Liv,” Matthew said. “I can only hold twelve, and that’s considered impressive. Beatrice has fifteen, and the guild was practically foaming at the mouth to get her to join.”
“And here you are, loaded with more mana than both of us together,” Triss said. “And not even gone to Coral Bay yet.” She laughed. “They have no idea what they’re in for, do they?”
“What’s the plan, then?” Liv asked. There seemed to be less mana-beasts here then on the trips she’d taken with her father, as well. Not a single gyrfalcon had dove at them yet.
“As soon as they’re properly dug in, we make the hike up to the mine entrance,” Matthew said. “Can you lay down a circle around the camp? I was going to do it, but now that I know how much power you’re walking around with, I’m going to save my mana.”
“I’ll handle it,” Liv said. “Just make certain no one crosses the ward by accident.” She left the shoals, walked back over to Steria, and fetched the first of the six pouches of mana-stone powder. Come to think of it, she wondered, as she began walking around the outside of the ditch the guards were digging, if she set a circle inside of the shoals, would it be possible to use Aluth to funnel the ambient mana into the powder, keeping the spell active for a longer period of time? It was something to ask Master Grenfell about, when this was all over.
“Are you coming with us, or staying?” Liv asked Emma, as her walk around the half-pitched camp brought her to the base of the aspen tree in which the huntress had perched with her bow.
“With you,” Emma said. “Three isn’t enough to go inside. You’ll be too easily overwhelmed. They had four when we were kids, and my father says they barely made it out alive.”
Liv frowned. She would have preferred Emma stay in the camp, where it was less dangerous. “Make sure you get out before I cast this spell, then,” was all she said. “Or you’ll be frozen as solid as a side of beef in the cellar.” She continued on, carefully pouring out dust until she reached the spot where she’d begun. Then, Liv looked to Matthew. “I’m ready,” she said.
“Listen up!” he called. “Liv’s about to activate a ward. Once she does, no one cross the circle. It should give you some protection from anything that comes this way. Emma, get over here with us. Everyone else, be inside the ward as of now.” He turned back to Liv and nodded.
Liv pulled her wand from the sheath at her hip, knelt down, and touched it to the curved line of dust. “Celēvant Cwo Ferent Sceria,” she intoned, shaping her intent and guiding her mana down through her arm, into the wand that sucked at it, and then out into the ring. A line of swirling blue and gold energy spread out to either side, turning gently until the magic met opposite Liv, on the other side of the camp, and completed the circle. She lifted her wand, stepped back, and slid it back into the sheath.
“How many rings?” Matthew asked.
“Only five,” Liv told him. “The wand isn’t quite as efficient as a staff for preventing waste, but it still helps.”
“Up we go, then,” Matthew said. “Shoot at anything within range,” he instructed the guards, who’d all brought crossbows.
“Why don’t we bring the horses?” Emma asked, joining the other three.
“It’s a good way to lose a good steed to mana-sickness,” Triss explained. “Or have it twisted into a beast. No, we leave them here.” Liv frowned: she’d never considered it before, but she’d ridden Steria in and out of the northern shoals time and again. She’d have to ask her father if there was something different about Elden horses that let them handle the raw magical energy.
“I had a thought,” Liv said, after they’d been hiking uphill for half a bell. In that time, Emma had brought down two quail, both mutated to half again their normal size and studded with glowing mana-stone. She would have loved to dress the carcasses for a stew, but there wasn't time to clean them, so they left the kills where they fell. “I could lay down a line of mana-dust across the entrance to the mines. It would trap everything inside while we scoured the slopes, then we could go in after.”
“If we could count on that being the only way in or out of the mines, it would be a good plan,” Matthew said. “But there’s drainage ditches, air shafts, and collapsed tunnels everywhere. I’ve seen Father’s maps. Blocking just the main entrance wouldn’t keep anything in that wanted to get out. That’s why we have layers of defense.”
“Defense in depth, it's called,” Triss broke in. “A culling team to go in and take out everything they can, first. Then a fallback camp, for triage and to wear down whatever gets past the primary team. Usually, we have apprentices there. Then, the guards on the town walls, and finally, places like the castle or temple.”
“You can’t possibly get everything,” Matthew said. “In most places, after the primary culling team leaves, lower ranking guild members will stay behind for weeks or months to hunt the countryside. I never really understood how isolated we are up here until I saw how it's done in the rest of the kingdom.”
“Hold.” Triss raised her arm and made a fist. Liv could see wisps of blue and gold sparking off her eyes, but didn’t remember hearing the woman speak an incantation. For a moment, there was only silence – and then Liv heard something rustling through the underbrush.
“Liv and Emma, back up,” Matthew said. He and Triss drew their rapiers, and Emma had kept an arrow nocked for the entirety of their journey upslope. Liv drew her wand, scanning the forest for motion.
Upslope and to the left of the road, a massive, segmented body burst out nearly on top of them. Beatrice moved as if she’d seen the monster coming, sliding to the side around some sort of deadly claw, while Matthew simply charged forward, lunging with his rapier. The tip skittered off the carapace of the creature.
Liv raised her wand, but took a moment to figure out just what she was seeing before she cast anything. It was long, with thin legs that sprawled out in every direction, and two segmented – tendrils? antennae? – that sprouted around its horrible mouth like an enormous mustache.
“It’s a centipede!” Liv shouted, finally overcoming the shock of seeing such an incredible increase in size.
“That means the bite is venomous! The claws, too!” Emma called out, already scrambling back for distance as she loosed one arrow after another, aimed right for the monster’s eyes - or what passed for them. Liv recalled the bestiary noting the animals could really only discern light from dark.
The arrows didn’t pierce the thick plates that protected the length of the creature’s body, but Triss’ blade unerringly found the joints between segments, piercing them. The moment the creature reared back in pain, Beatrice would dance out of its path, her eyes sparking blue the entire time. She might as well have choreographed the fight in advance for all the chance the monstrous centipede had of touching her.
Matthew, in the meantime, simply focused on keeping its attention. The sight of a venomous claw skittering off his jack of plate made Liv flinch, but he seemed no worse for wear, and she recalled that his armor was layered in enchantments. Still, if the only one hurting it was Triss, it would take them all afternoon to defeat the mana-beast.
“Save your arrows,” Liv told Emma. “I’ll finish it.” She raised her wand, pointing it at a spot just to the right of the centipede’s massive head, and let the word of power in the back of her mind wake. “Celent Ai’Veh Creim,” she intoned.
Crystals of ice, hard as metal, sprang forth from the ground next to the centipede, growing rapidly and sprouting more and more offshoots, which pierced the exoskeleton of the mana-beast. Before it had time to escape, the cluster of crystals caught it by the head – but they didn’t stop growing there.
Liv only let the spell finally end when the entire head had been snapped off and then crushed to a pulp, pierced in a dozen places. Emma looked at her, mouth gaping open.
“Up to the mine?” Liv asked.
Comments
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter! Yeah with everything said and done in pure combat and magical strength Liv is easily the strongest member of this culling team... However it remains to be seen if there will come a situation where he inexperience will fail her and Triss and Mathew need to "take care of some kind of threat" that "Should be easily killable for Liv" or something^^
George R
Thanks for the chapter
Tarrim
She isn't thinking that far ahead yet. I do wonder if some of the secrets are going to be revealed soon anyway. They have a vaedic lady they will have to deal with and stronger human mages could be an asset.
william wallace
The secret isnt so much that the eld have more tolerance for high mana levels as it is how they tolerate high mana levels.
Grayson
TYFTC but shouldn't Liz recognize that once she tells Eld secrets to Matthew, the knowledge will slowly spread to his children, grandchildren, etc. and eventually the secret will completely leak out??
Dave N
thank you!
Tarrim
Every edge > very edge
Tarrim
Also there should be 14 horses in total not 13 6 guards 4 members of the culling team 3 knights and mistress traford makes 14
william wallace
Excellent moment of bad ass.
Tarrim
I thought the castle only opened when the town was threatened directly rather than the entire eruption.
