18th of Taka, 1000, dawn

Mage tower Fort Kitapüru,

A flare of light interrupted the peaceful glow of sunrise. It wasn’t particularly large but that was a trick of distance. A watchful soldier pointed it out to the gathered coven. Erica, lying semi comatose didn’t seem to care.

Clara did. “Why is it always fireballs?”

“Because they’re the most fun.” Max replied as if it was obvious.

“No. Easy to see. Quick prep time. Good base damage with splash secondaries. Relatively easy to intercept. Good way to test the preparation of the other side.” Fitzhugh replied more matter of factly.

Silvia climbed to her feet from the semi trans state coven cast had left her in. They watched as the mage released the fireball towards the fort. Fireballs weren’t quick to land. Over this distance they had time to make a decision. They waited. There was no second cast.

“A test,” Fitzhugh concluded.

Silvia looked to Erica. “Don’t use the shield on this. I want them to think they know what we have.”

She turned to Max. “Max, when I say we’re going to drop a simple stone wall in the fireball’s path. They know we have an earth mage and a fire mage. Lets make them think I’ve used my cast for the day. So it can’t be bigger or stronger than my standard wall cast. You’ve seen it before. You’ve fire balled it before. You know what it can take. How far out does it need to be so that when the fireball lands and breaks the wall the splash won’t hit the fort.”

Max paused. “Needs to be about 5 meters out from the fort walls.”

Silvia regarded the rest of the team. “Right, a nice easy test cast.” She took a breath. “Unless there is something severely dramatic we won’t have to worry about switch. So Cindy, as the one governing finesse you're going to be helping Max with the cast.”

Max opened his mouth to protest.

Silvia wasn’t interested. “I’ms sure that your well capable of casting it accurately by yourself. But we are practicing. We can’t afford to find out there are problems when we are trying to drop five or six casts in less time that it takes to create one.”

She paused again. “In fact, Clara, you form the cast, hand it over to Max to drop and then Cindy you can guide the expression. Might as well test the lot.”

“This is stupid. I can…” Max started grumbling.

He was cut off by Fitzhugh. “That fireball is getting close. Perhaps start and we can argue latter.”

Silvia looked up. “Clara, go.”

The wall cast wasn’t complicated. A couple of hand movements and a word to prepare. Almost by instinct Max, from fully standing slammed his hands to the ground and with a small twitch of Cindy’s fingers a wall 3 meters wide 5 meters tall and 300mm thick of what seemed to be granite rose from the ground half a meter in front of the fireball.

The fireball was on the large side. Max would have said he could cast bigger. He might be correct but before he could comment Clara glared at him. “You shrank my wall.”

Silvia responded first. “I asked him to make it look like a wall I would cast. He did.”

Clara looked at her. “That’s a small wall.”

“Yes it is.” Silvia grinned. “As Max knows, I never cast full strength at the beginning. This fight is going to last days. Battlefield magic is about knowing your opponent. About trick and feint. About preparation, positioning and power. Passion is fine but you win a mage battle with icy resolve.”

A boom reverberated through the early morning. The fireball impacted on the wall destroying the top three quarters. Fiery fragments flying back towards the fort. Some were small, the size of pebbles, others larger, the size of bread loaves. None reached the fort but they remained resolutely alight. Red-hot and glowing brightly.

“Looks to be hotter than yours typically are Max.” Silvia commented. He granted in response.

The professor stared at the remains of the wall and with a faraway look in his eyes recited. “Some say it’ll all end in fire, some say ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire. I’ll hold with those of fire.” He petered off. “Forgot how it goes really. My me-maw used to say it was an old thing. Maybe from the great empire. I’f I remember right she said Robert Frost made it up. I just remember I didn’t like the end bit. It didn’t rhyme well. My me-maw told me off for getting it wrong all the time. I just remember making up my own ending. “If I had to toss the dice. I’d be afraid it’d come out ice.”

“Thanks for that bit if cheery commentary”. Mandy’s tutor, Claudia hadn’t spoken much since joining everyone on the roof. So there was a bit of silence as everyone digested her sarcasm.

Fitzhugh spoke first. “Anything further from the opposition?” Eyes turned back to the panorama. “There is no reason for them to hold back. Intel says that they have seven mages. They know we only have two. In their position I would be trying to overwhelm us. Seven casts to two should be easy.”

Silvia had never had a chance to play to her passion. Military theory. She had joined the military not because she anticipated being a mage. She had signed up young like many in her family. It was a respectable way to provide. She had always dreamed of being a general not hiding with the mages who wheeled big power but had limited impact due to slow cycle rates. If she was honest with her self it was probably why she had supported a fairly poor attitude to her role. After all how interesting could it be, block today’s cast and wait for tomorrow to block that cast. If she was really clever, catch two enemy casts with one of hers and hope that the offensive mages didn’t waste the opportunity. They invariably did.

Suddenly a soldier pointed. “There.” Almost directly in line with the rising sun an occasional vibration seemed shake pebbles and sand about.

Fitzhugh squinted in the direction indicated as he spoke. “Good eyes. Looks like something is moving under the surface.”

Max looked at Silvia before they spoke together. “Sapper tunnel.”

“What?” Fitzhugh asked.

“A tunnel dug und the walls of a fort with one of woman objectives. Allow enemies forces entry to the fort via the tunnel of to blow-up a section of the wall.” The professor responded.

“Light spike. Cool. I’ve never cast one of them before.” Max was salivating at the prospect.

“What’s that do?” Cindy asked.

Silvia replied whilst her mind was elsewhere. “Not much here. Specifically it is a intense bolt of light that falls form the sky as cuts a hole down to the tunnel. In please where there are large amounts of water it allows for flooding. In places where the ground is not firm enough it can precipitate a tunnel collapse. If it’s aimed well enough you can hit anyone in the tunnel. But this rocky terrain the ground it too firm and they are using an earth cast to generate the tunnel. All alight spoke would do is given them a nine little ventilation shaft.”

“Not if you make it big enough” max retorted. “And with he amount of power in this dust circle…”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Pookkalam.” The professor interjected.

“…pookkalam,” Max took the correction, “we can make the hole wider than the tunnel.”

“No.” Silvia quashed that approach. “It’s flashy but doesn’t really address the problem. We need a different plan.”

“Density,” Erica moaned as she staggered up from the position she had fallen into when they original coven was cast.

“She’s awake” the professor said. Nobody was sure if he was relieved or resigned.

“Yes I’m awake. No thanks to that crazy idea you had of adding a shield to the coven cast. Have you any idea what kind of pain that exacted?” She growled out.

The professor shook his head. “Not really, I mean all this is new. So how could I possible guess. Still it looks like you survived.”

“No thanks to you. It turns out that our little shield wasn’t a single nguvu cast like every other cast known to man. No, our little cast was a two nguvu cast. And it ripped both of them from me despite the fact that the human body only has one and a bit nguvu at most.” Erica was getting wound up.

She calmed herself slightly. “Yes I was able to get most of the second nguvu from the coven pool. Boy did it hurt.” She finally stood completely. Staggering for a moment. “I think I hate you professor.” She stated matter of factly.

Silvia cleared her throat. “Well, sorry that the cast took such a personal toll. But did you say something about the tunnel currently growing towards our wall?”

Erica passed for a moment. “Sure. Density. Simple solution.”

Everyone looked at her blankly.

“Really?” She looked around the group. “Nobody’s thought this through?” Getting a vague shake of the head from most people. She sighed. “Has I have just discovered in a personal and painful way. There are limits on the output of a cast, that when exceeded exact a price.”

She took a breath to steady herself. “Depending on the way the sapper tunnel was cast there are two issues. If the cast was, the equivalent of dig a tunnel from a to b then the nguvu required for that cast would be a variable amount. The further the distance between the two point is one reason, size of the tunnel the second. But as the material between the two points gets harder the more nguvu required to force the tunnel though.”

The covers nodded at the obvious statement.

Erica continued. “So if the mage was smart he or she would limit the cast to a single Nguvu of expenditure no matter what. If not and we force them to spend more Nguvu than they have at their disposal…” she left the sentence intentionally open.

“Gentling through nguvu drain.” Fitzhugh winced even as he said it.

It was something all mages feared. Drop a cast that required too much nguvu and the price to be paid was often horrific. It wasn’t something mages talked about. But it was something that haunted them all. If it was worse than that it would consume a mage from the inside out leaving a lifeless just where once a human was.

“So we force a density change in the rock. I like it.” Silvia nodded at the suggestion. “Perhaps we get lucky and the mage has made a mistake. We force them into nguvu drain reducing our position by a mage at this early stage.”

Mandy shuddered at the thought. “But if they know we have a fire mage and an earth mage, we can’t drop another earth cast without giving the game away.”

Silvia grin retreated. “True. I’d rather not give the game away this early in the siege. But make no mistake we are effectively besieged. There is no easy way out of the fort now. Not for anyone. The troops aren’t obvious but they’re here.”

Erica ignored the negative Nancy in the centre of the pookkalam. “We all agreed to torture me for a reason. We have an active shield. It was designed to be flexible and ‘bump’ situations into the right direction.”

“And?” Silvia asked.

“Well it occurs to me that there need be no indication that a cast has been made.” Erica responded. “I can increase the density of the stone immediately in front of the tunnel without dropping a new cast. It will increase the upkeep in the short term. This in turn will drop the coven recoup value but since the coven is almost back to full capacity that will not effect our ability to cast again.”

“If the mage has a high enough finesse score they can redirect the tunnel around a particularly dense patch of rock.”Silvia said.

“Yeah and they will just create more tunnels utilising different directions of approach.” Max added.

“In that case I will increase the density in a band all the way around the fort.” Erica replied as if the change was obvious.

“Yes but how deep and thick should the dense patch be?” Silvia asked.

“Yes I see your point.” Erica replied. “Your the coven captain or whatever the position is called. You make the decision.”

Mandy nervously commented. “But we can’t use more than six nguvu because that’s what’s what’s left aft the reserve for the shield upkeep is factored in.”

“No, don’t waste that much.” Silvia responded. “Go with a large natural outcrop of some dense stone. Nothing that would drop the main pool be anything more that a single nguvu. It’s early days but we need to reserve nuguvu for later.”

The professor walked over to the area that Erica was sitting in. There the powder filling her circle had taken a strange kind of elasticity that allowed the professor to draw sigils into it. After a moment he stepped back and Erica stepped back into her circle. As she pushed nguv into he shield cast she muttered more words and the sigils glowed for a moment before disappearing and then with a faint thrum only audible to the coven she was done.

They all watched with bated breath. Was the tunnel going to stop or not?

A few moments later the tunnel stopped. The couldn’t tell if there was a casualty or just that the mage had reached his limit and stopped work. Perhaps one day some they would find out. For the moment all they could do was speculate.

Out of the corner of her eye Silvia saw something, like a faint twisting or knotting of the air. “Max, wind whisperers. Quick, fiery banishment.” She commanded.

Which a sweeping cut of his hand, a ark of fire ripped out fo max flashing away towards the north. With a wail something not quite human and yet not animal at all, fled the mage’s tower.

It was as if a signal had be given, suddenly the army of Fujiama came boiling out of the surrounding desert. Obviously they had been waiting for a second obvious casting before acting. Someone had told them to move once they saw two casts. The fujikan mages had been very cleaver. Three attacks they knew would be stopped, but almost always done with a flashy manoeuvre.

Silvia shook her head. Without the coven, the fujikan military would have over run Kitapüru in no time at all. Someone smart was on the other side of the conflict. She thought about what she was going to do going forward. She could either give the game away and show that they had the capability to drop wind casts. Or restrict herself to earth and fire casts in the short term.

The latter was the better game plan. Still she was would need to help the defender soon. She just needed their forces to bottle neck. They didn’t and before she could count they were surging against the walls and gates of the fort. She turned to Max. “We might be able to fool the enemy mages for a bit. You need to forget the monster fireball I know you have been dreaming about.”

“Cast a long wall of fire that this going to spread out from the fort in a southerly direction, it won’t cover the entire line advancing against us, but it was the best we can do. You will need both Cindy and Clara to help as you are going to be dropping the cast slowly so that we can pour two or three nguvu into the flames.” She paused.

“I don’t want it to be hotter than normal but to last much, much longer. Rather than waiting for people to step poorly, it needs to jump to those nearby.” She regretted what she was about to say. “Use three nguvu for the cast. We need to get the number of attackers whittled down.”

The manic grin that appeared on Max’s face confirmed that she would regret this. As max, Clara and Cindy prepared for the cast, the professor hurried over to Max’s circle pouring a sweet smelling orange powder into small little piles. A couple of traced singles into the silver beneath and it was ready.

Max returned to his circle. Already Clara was at work doing the initial work of the cast. With a nod she signalled to Max that he could drop the cast. With a single word and a weird pirouette type movement max dropped the cast handing the last part over to Cindy.

Max turned out of his circle sprinting to the parapet so that he could watch the cast’s effect. He wasn’t disappointed. A wall of flame sprang forth engulfing a large portion the enemy’s army. Immediately cries and screams arose as the wall of flames struck and stuck to individuals.

Silvia hated it. She refused to look. She knew the devastation of balefire from it’s effects on her family. The rising smells of burnt flesh, so appetising at dinner and lunch, now turned her stomach as she considered the maimed and dying left on the field as the wave of flame moved through the enemy forces.

Clara and Cindy continued to dance. The first continuing the draw nguvu, forming and crafting it into the cast’s form. The last, with closed eyes, using all her finesse to ensure that the fire didn’t burnout, wasting itself on fresh air. Rather like a poisonous chalice it would continue to bounce from one individual to another.

The cast lasted long enough even Max was sickened by the shear destruction wrought. The enemy retreated to lick it’s wounds. In the end Fitzhugh guessed the Fujikans had arrived with a little under nineteen thousand combatants and left almost two thousand on the field, most dead and dying from the burn wounds.

There was no indication that any of the enemy mages had been killed but by some sort of unwritten agreement both parties were done for the day. There was still enough coven nguvu for at least two more casts. Recoup would have allowed them another four or five bey the end of the day. The enemy mages had only cast three times and so they theoretically had another four casts held in reserve.

Nobody had imagined that a mage cast could be so devastating. Nobody had really considered the consequences of pushing a mage into battle against other normal humans. The continued cries haunted Silvia long after the twins stopped dancing. In latter years the nightmares would ebb and flare as these thing are want to do. She learned to live with it but in her heart she never quite forgave the captain for making her responsible for all that death.